With the Peter Chapman case in the news currently I thought I’d write a post. As well as raising serious questions as to the way Police handle sex offenders it also raises serious questions as to how safe facebook is and whether or not you know who is looking at your page.
A few months ago face revamped its security measures adding options for greater control for privacy. The new measures are much better… but only if you have actually changed them. Whilst a notification came up telling you the options were there didn’t seem to be much of an incentive for people to change them. Facebook has remained fairly safe up until this recent case. These events, it seems, are unfortunately necessary if people are to start taking things seriously and it should be a lesson for every person who uses it.
I’m not an avid facebook user and if I don’t know someone who’s added me as a friend then I won’t confirm there invite. However, I’m not the sort of person who contact’s people solely on the internet or uses it to make friends. Seeing people in the flesh has always seemed the best, and only, way to go about it. I’m not a child who has grown up using the internet from a very young age though, who do almost all their social interaction online.
Regarding the role of parenting as a form of “internet regulation” I think this case has highlighted the importance of being aware of what your child is doing. Perhaps, for children, the computer should become something central in the house, not a station in the corner of a child’s bedroom. Wherever it is the parent needs to take a strong role to influence their child’s view of what the internet can be used for and what sort of beast it is.
Last week the New York Timesannounced that from 2011 it would be charging its readers for full access to its website. According to reports, it would appear that many UK papers will follow suit. So where does that leave us?
On Radio 4’s Today programme Professor Tim Luckhurstexpressed his optimism for the future of journalism. He believes people are accustomed to the idea that you need professional journalism, and that in the new era of the Internet, social media networks are beginning to drive people towards professional journalism. He added that the culture will have to change if people want edited, professional journalism. (Follow the link above to hear the whole interview.)
I would beg to differ.
There are, as he says, plenty of people who want professional journalism. If you want to know the news and know it’s correct, you’ll go to a respected source such as the BBC, as discussed in Tasha’s last post. Therefore those people will be willing to pay for it.
Optimism
These, however, are people who are already interested in news. Who already read The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph… But going back to Giles’ previous post. Who is the future audience? Children, teenagers. I can’t imagine many of them will be paying for a subscription to The Times any time soon.
If online newspapers do become subscription only, I think there could be problems for professional journalism. People could grow up getting their information from other, less reliable sources, and that will become the norm. According to this article, 18 to 24 year olds are already heading elsewhere. By the looks of it the need for professional journalism is on the decline.
Reliable
At the moment if you search for a news story, apart from television-related sites, and the likes of Reuters, the majority of top results will be linked to a newspaper, be it local, national or international. Take all but a few away, and you’ll start hitting blogs, Facebook and other sites.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, so long as the information’s accurate. So is there any way we can ensure that the news people are accessing is correct? Another question for another day.
Right, so I want to talk about the regulation of online news in China, in 400 words or so. Hmmmmmm …. I’d Google it, but it may prove a bit tricky right now.
Perhaps the best place to start is with the People’s Republic of China’s Constitution. (Don’t worry, we won’t stay long.)
Article 35 states that citizens enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.
This however conflicts rather dramatically with Reporters without Borders who rank China at number 168 out of 173, in the press freedom index.
Despite China having the world’s fastest growing economy, its media is still tightly controlled by the country’s leadership. Described as the“world’s largest prison for journalists, bloggers and cyber-dissidents”, and with long jail sentences for those attempting to defy the state, this is definitely not a country you want to be caught breaking the rules in.
The Great Firewall of China, as it’s known, is obligatory, not optional, as the authorities had reportedly promised. Designed supposedly to protect children from pornographicsites and increase parental control, critics have complained that it could also stop Chinese internet users searching for politically sensitive information.
The BBCs Chinese language website, Youtube, Twitter and Facebook are just some of the more popular sites currently inaccessible throughout China. A protest group in support of Xinjiang Independence, was the catalyst for the Chinese Government’s ‘dislike’ of Facebook.
Chinese censors periodically and inexplicablyblockand unblockforeign news sites that inquisitive surfers may try to access. There is a special task force of some 30,000 “cybercops” who patrol the World Wide Web, block select foreign news sites, and terminate domestic sites with politically sensitive information.
More repression than regulation, I’d say.
The Umbrella Effect
In researching this subject, it has been made clear to me that China are keen to ‘keep up appearances’, even if those appearances are far from subtle. This clip demonstrates the difficultly facing one journalist attempting to report on the 20th Tienament Square anniversary.
Internet sites were also forced to close down; for maintenance, obviously.
Health Warning
There are so many examples of ‘regulation’ within Chinese online news and it is most definitely not just the anniversaries of these horrific events that are censored. News of the Urumqi Riots, the Sichuan earthquake and the Bejing Olympics suffocated in the hands of the hierarchy, violence ensuing for those journalists not following the State’s orders.
But the SARS outbreak in 2002 was particularly worrying, as officials were accused of censoring information about the spread of the life-threatening disease. The authoritarian Government’s insistence of complete media control, not only put its own citizens at risk but also, essentially contributed to deaths worldwide.
Google It? Google Out.
More recently, on 14th January, internet giantGoogle has said it may end its operations in China following a “sophisticated and targeted” cyber attack. It said it was no longer willing to censor its Chinese search engine – google.cn. This could result in closing the site, and its Chinese offices.
Reporters Without Borders reiterated its support for the Global Online Freedom Act following this revelation and praised the Google executives in standing up to the Chinese authorities.
Just scratching the surface of this vast beast has unearthed atrocious security, health and human rights issues. A country which has had the world’s most sophisticated system of online censorship and surveillance for years, is going to take a whole lot of taming.
The Internet is commonly defined by its lack of regulation, by way of limitless boundaries. The fast-flowing pace of media and news swamps the Internet, mostly unregulated and in high concentration. This has raised issues for legislators and censorship task forces, who argue the importance of the freedom of expression and address questions of intellectual property rights.
It’s almost impossible to regulate a person’s opinion. We are free to express what we want, when we want to, provided that it does not infringe upon the universal rules of law, and codes of conduct set out globally the UN declaration of Human Rights Springs to mind! However the Internet is a different kettle of fish. Whilst there have been notable instances of media regulation on the Internet, it is still rare on a large scale- with the consensus being, a perceived reluctance to constrain the Internets freewheeling nature.
‘The enterprise of new media has developed beyond its chosen purpose’. With websites such as twitter, Facebook, Bebo, MySpace (to name a few) providing more than they had perhaps initially anticipated. These sites have inadvertently created the citizen journalist. With the requirement of an email address and some form of name, citizen journalists are free to roam and publish information as they please on the endless networks of the Internet. This particular form of new media has provided the large news corporations with an entirely new branch of reporting, occurring on a larger and quicker scale. And of course, with the Internet so widely available, media through social networking is limitless and HARD to regulate.
In 2009, twitter became an important tool for both journalists and political protesters, particularly in Iran. Throughout the highly documented Iranian Presidential election, ordinary (and angry) Iranians expressed feelings about the result through the Twitter site. It couldn’t have been a more perfect situation for the news corporations, of which, many had been banned from Iran throughout the election and its aftermath. Iranians were tweeting, blogging, facebooking not only their feelings, but also what was going on inside the country. By using social networking sites, new media was officially born, opening a window for the rest of the world to see, and of course, they did this unregulated.
The CEO of Twitter was once quoted as saying , ”What we have to do is deliver to people the best and freshest most relevant information possible. We think of Twitter as it’s not a social network, but it’s an information network. It tells people what they care about as it is happening in the world”. There were of course many instances where Twitter was used to convey an important message to the world, however the Iranian Election demonstrated the ultimate value social networking, new media and the Internet holds.
So with the positive uses of new media, is their any need for governance or regulation?
Perhaps with that in mind the following should be considered:
Media Pluralism in the 21st Century
The importance of Impartiality and balance….or unimportance of it
”My opinion is important” Internet governance fascist??
Cyberlaw- ”i’m not being censored by someone who holds the complete opposite views as me”
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