"Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today." - President-Elect Barack Obama
It's somewhat empowering when you think about the implications - yet there are as always problems. The internet, while the information flow seems anti-big brother is actually almost exactly what big brother wants because it can be controlled (cf. China, for example). Thoughts?
Sure, there are attempts at control and some of them have been successful, but it's much slipperier to get a handle on. Controlling the internet is a lot harder than, say, burning books, or locking them away... or even keeping your population illiterate.
In the past it was possible for regimes to control broadcast tv and radio and control which printed works made it into their country. They could control how much of the outside world got in.
But it's a lot harder to control the internet. You might be able to exert influence over search engines (e.g. China), but it's still a much more global phenomenon that's that much harder to stop because of it. There are just so many linkages that it seems to me that to me it seems efforts to limit access are likely doomed to fail.
5 comments:
Neat-o - that was one of the neatest things I've seen in a while.
I agree - very cool. I might just find a place for this in my course on technology and writing...
It's somewhat empowering when you think about the implications - yet there are as always problems. The internet, while the information flow seems anti-big brother is actually almost exactly what big brother wants because it can be controlled (cf. China, for example). Thoughts?
Sure, there are attempts at control and some of them have been successful, but it's much slipperier to get a handle on. Controlling the internet is a lot harder than, say, burning books, or locking them away... or even keeping your population illiterate.
In the past it was possible for regimes to control broadcast tv and radio and control which printed works made it into their country. They could control how much of the outside world got in.
But it's a lot harder to control the internet. You might be able to exert influence over search engines (e.g. China), but it's still a much more global phenomenon that's that much harder to stop because of it. There are just so many linkages that it seems to me that to me it seems efforts to limit access are likely doomed to fail.
That would be fabulous! :)
My blog was once banned in China - my friend there couldn't read it for more than 6 months.
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