The battle for Internet Freedom

While here in America we have the EFF to govern Internet Freedom and much much more, including the regulation of all sorts of technological rights. With the EFF's help, the government might have a hard time getting a hold of anyone's information unless they have committed a very serious crime. They have filed lawsuits against the government ranging from cell-phone tracking the to raids of suspected video-game hackers, almost always resorting back to their motto of freedom of speech and information on the internet. While it might be nice that we have such a strict legal team to back up all of our internet rights, other countries cannot say the same. In my presentation this week, I briefly touched up the cases of China vs. Google and the litigation of the Italian government. This is the link to the website that I showed in class http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20000415-38.html. I have also found more information on these issues regarding internet freedom. In Italy, the government (specifically president Silvio Berlusconi) has gone forward in setting up the government's ability to veto violent or pornographic content from YouTube. Google (which owns youtube) has filed a lawsuit against the government that says they are violating freedom of speech. This article further explains http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/22/italy-internet-regulation_n_433386.html. Just in the last week, google has shut down its search engine in China because of censorship, and has routed its users to Hong Kong instead. According the the Chinese government, this violates Chinese law and the promise google made to filter its search engine. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/technology/23google.html

These are just two examples of many more that happen all across the world. Although freedom organizations do their best to stop it, government involvement in the internet seems like it will never end.

A new way to Organize

Shirkey's article regarding Group Organization on the Internet got me thinking about how much we really do use the Internet to come together and collaborate. Without the internet, I'm not exactly sure how I would know about many of the events, parties, meetings etc. that I am supposed to attend. It's shocking to think that at some point, people had to send letters or use word of mouth just to rally a group. Today, we have Facebook to create a birthday invitation telling all of our friends where to go, what time, and what to wear; we have email to coordinate a meeting with classmates whom we are doing a group project with; if no one is around to discuss our views on something currently happening in the news, we can go online and chat with thousands about how we feel. Today, it takes barely any time, effort or money to form a large open group forum surrounding a common interest. One example I can think of a large group forming online, before even meeting in person, is the College groups that incoming freshmen form to discuss their upcoming year. When I was coming into freshman year, there was a group on Facebook called CUA c/o 2011, in which a large percentage of my class belonged too. Through this group we could get to know each other, feel each other out, ask questions, relay fears and whatever else, without ever speaking a word to each other. I'm pretty sure that ten years ago, I would have gone to college not knowing a single face, but because of that facebook group, I already recognized a couple of people. I definitely think this new phenomenon of group formation is going to be helpful in the future. It is all part of the new mentality for americans to get stuff done quicker, better and more efficiently. This new technological age is one that can only grow from here.