The World Is Connected Like Never Before

The internet was a promising technological advancement designed to make the world’s information more accessible and the public’s participation in government more feasible. However, according to John Dvorak in his column titled “The False Promises of the Internet,” the stability and freedom of the internet is on a downward trend. He conveys this idea with the use of his negative connotation and his appeal to ethos.

A person up to date in today's society must acknowledge the importance and the parcticality of the internet. Just as in other areas of society, personal freedoms are stretched to the very limit on this modern invention, raising isuues in regards to what type of information the internet should be allowed to broadcast. Since its inception, the internet has spawned overnight millionaires, served as the new information medium, and even played host to some heinous crimes. The topic of greatest concern though, is in how the people legislate the division between what is obscence and what is allowable. The way that these issues are dealt with will shape the very form in which the internet and other

In Esther Dyson’s “Cyberspace: If You Don’t Love It, Leave It”, the existence of the internet is seen as potentially dangerous to today’s society. Dyson insists that the internet was once a sanctuary for tech savvy individuals such as gamers and professionals like engineers. The author focuses on the negative websites and communities that are often found offensive to the majority. She thinks the World Wide Web harbors a lot of power. This power can be accessed and conquered easily by most of the population. According to Dyson, responsibility is the key to changing the future (295). Her argument is convincing but slightly unrealistic. The internet seems to be growing into a whole other alternate universe. Society’s rapidly growing technology industry will only be harder to regulate. Most people will do what they want, when they want especially when it comes to the internet.

In the 1700s, it would have taken 2 years to navigate round the globe. In the 1930s, it would have taken only 8 days. In the 1990s, an increase in technology and transport have been able to lower this time to only 31 hours. These transport improvements have been able to create a ‘shrinking world, which, in turn, creates a much more interconnected world.

The internet has become a popular source used by society of a worldwide computer network that provides a variety of information and communication facilities allowing individuals to communicate with one another easily. The internet it self has brought people together but has changed the way people interact with each other, created isolation, some addiction and being unsafe. Nowadays, anything can be shared to the wide world through any device that is able to connect to the internet; where this can lead to what Charles Seife terms as “no privacy” in his article, “The Loneliness of the Interconnected.” According to Seife, the Internet’s vast interconnectivity made it possible for everyone to hear everyone else - and to be heard by everyone else.

The Internet has proven itself to be helpful, but it can also be a scary place. When the Internet first emerged, it was difficult to gauge its full potential. The Internet was actually created as a “military communications network in the 1960s” (Campbell et al., 2016, p. 41). However, the Internet became a more integral part of society around the 21st century when it transformed into a hub of information and entertainment. The film, The Net, features the early years of the Internet and the dangers that came with it. This film took a radical stance about how the Internet can damage a person’s life. The film remains relevant today since it inspires paranoia regarding the fragile safety

Over the course of the past few decades, technology has been on a fast track to more advanced opportunities for communication. These developments have increased efficiency in society, however, it is evident that the basic values, such as privacy of personal information, are compromised significantly. Privacy is an essential element of a free society and without which, individuals would lose the ability to interact with one another in private. With the advancements of technology there is a clash between an individuals right to guard their personal information and the power of the cyber world to penetrate that information. Innovative technologies such as various forms of social media and surveillance are invading the freedom to said privacy.

Daniel Solove, a professor who specializes in internet privacy law, wrote this book to give his personal take on how the internet was transforming the way people connect through social mediums and how that could change in the future. An important thing to note about this book is that it was published in 2007, so some of the social and technological aspects of the book are slightly dated. Regardless of this though, this book provides an inquisitive perspective on the dynamic nature of the internet as a vessel of our society’s changing norms on privacy in the social sphere. Many of our learning points in class relate to topics discussed in this book and help to strengthen the context and significance of the underlying message.

Internet censorship is the control or suppression of the publishing or accessing of information on the Internet. This can include blocking entire websites, blocking parts of certain websites, prohibiting certain search engine keywords, monitoring individual internet use, and punishing individuals for this use. On a smaller scale, companies censor access to certain websites to increase productivity in workers or decrease chances of a sexual harassment lawsuit. Parents may block certain website on their family computers in an attempt to maintain their child’s innocence. On a much larger scale, entire governments can censor or track the Internet use of its constituents.

The Internet’s continuous advancement has produced the need for an on-going debate on whether or not the government should have the power to control the Internet. The idea of the government having control over what each country’s citizens can see on the Internet is also called Internet Censorship. Internet Censorship “is the control or suppression of the publishing of, or access to information on the Internet.” Internet Censorship varies from country to country depending on each country’s current usage and philosophy of how it should be used. (toptenreviews.com) Currently, there are ten countries including

The complex relationship between technology and the social sphere of human privacy becomes a major concern in modern society. Privacy is an imprescriptible right, and enjoyable. Even between family members, they all can have some secrets, which helps to build personality and makes them to be more like themselves. Instead, if everything about a person has exposed to public, and the personality might change with public opinion. Peter Singer discusses in his essay “Visible Man: Ethics in a world without secrets” that social networking makes the living circumstance becomes a Panopticon, which is no privacy in daily life and this surveillance technology helps government stifling dissent for a more secure country.

Privacy and the conflicts associated with it that citizens face are some of the most controversial topics in the world today. One of the main conflicts that citizens deal with is if the government is spying on us all the time and that if people feel that this it is an invasion of their privacy. Peter Singer evaluates on this topic of the good and bad of privacy in his essay, “Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets”. He explains how technology has changed the way people think about privacy. People know and share all kinds of information about themselves through social media.

On the other hand, the US does not actively regulate the internet, relying on the public to regulate content on the internet, with little government intervention. The internet in the US is relatively open, whereas in China, information on the internet is suppressed based on what the Chinese government deems appropriate or inappropriate. Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, has stated, “Countries that heavily censor the ‘Net are creating a new ‘Information Curtain’ to rival the old Iron Curtain of the Cold War era.”(Anderson)

The concern about privacy on the Internet is increasingly becoming an issue of international dispute. ?Citizens are becoming concerned that the most intimate details of their daily lives are being monitored, searched and recorded.? (www.britannica.com) 81% of Net users are concerned about threats to their privacy while online. The greatest threat to privacy comes from the construction of e-commerce alone, and not from state agents. E-commerce is structured on the copy and trade of intimate personal information and therefore, a threat to privacy on the Internet.

By having complete control over the few entities and their network connections, the Chinese government is able to monitor and regulate the Internet more effectively. Sherman, co-author of “Red Wired: China’s Internet Revolution”, explained that “China is not on the Internet, it's basically an intranet. Everything is banned by the Great Firewall”. Although Internet is accessible outside of China, the vast majority of the population refuse to use it because it is so inconvenient (Herold, 2012). For instance, recurrent time-outs, very slow Internet connection, and the content