We trust in the miracle of the digital age that has made all our lives so much simpler over the past couple decades, almost implicitly.
I enter my personal information, my credit card numbers my bank account info. I fill out student loan applications full of information that if it found its way into the wrong hands could ruin m
y life. well, maybe not ruin, but sure create a huge mess that would take years to clean up.
I see my friends post pictures of their kids and where they go to school. Friends and associates check in to places, leaving anyone with bad intentions an idea of where they are and when they’ll be home. There used to be warnings about about not posting to social media while you were on vacation because it let the burglars know you weren’t home. I don’t hear those warnings so much anymore.
The entire recording industry was almost brought down by Napster and sites like it providing illegal digital copies of music two decades ago, and if not for Apple, most likely would have. People are broadcasting movies, concerts and boxing matches on Periscope, sidestepping the rights of producers and promoters.
And the poor guys with profiles on Ashley Madison are shaking in their boots, praying that their significant others don’t read their name in an online article detailing their use of the site. It may be difficult to feel sorry for those guys because one may not agree with their ethical decisions, but their lives may very well be ruined.
So yes, there are dangers associated with the internet. Big ones.
How do we address those dangers? Is the heavy hand of government regulation the answer? Perhaps in small doses, when absolutely necessary, but it’s a slippery slope when when we start to allow the bureaucrats to cast a shadow on a technology–a culture–that has reached its tentacles into almost every aspect of our lives. We need to be very careful about what we allow. Especially when it comes to free speech and constitutional protections.
Perhaps much of the answer lies in personal responsibility. We try to teach our kids, successfully or not, about stranger danger, about the other dangers of life, and how to protect themselves. We, as digital consumers, need to teach ourselves more about the dangers of the internet and other media and not be so pie-in-the-sky.
In class, we’ve spoken a lot about the advantages and the power of the digital convergence, about its impact on closed societies that become more open, more democratic. With any great change, there are going to be hitches, we need to be careful not to allow efforts to correct those hitches result in a lessening of our freedoms, and the ability to extend those freedoms, eventually, around the world.
Of course, there are situations that will require some form of regulation. People can’t be allowed to hack into private corporations and steal information. Intellectual property must be protected. Threats of physical harm should not be tolerated.
But instead of trying to “catch up” to innovation, maybe we need to slow down and make sure we understand the implications of any regulations we put in place, both nationally and internationally. We’ve all criticized foreign governments that censor internet use. Let’s not be one of them.
