strange symphonies

Silencing Cyperspace - The Final Frontier?

February 7th, 2007 by aizatto

The news thats hot now, is the recent defamation case by popular bloggers Jeff Ooi and Ahiruddin Attan. In light of that they were having a forum on the topic of ‘Silencing Cyberspace - The Final Frontier?‘.

Though I have many opinions on the issue of censorship, I decided to lay low during the event.

During registration a pamphlet about the ‘Freedom of Information (FOI) Campaign‘ was given out. To me, when I hear FOI, I think of the tragedy of the commons, in fact it is referring to a more open government. Well that’s due to my conditioning into Free and Open Source Software, and the Creative Commons. How about the rest of you guys, what do you first think of when you hear ‘Freedom of Information‘?

With some time left until the speakers came, I started thinking about the difference of Freedom of Information, and Access to Knowledge. I don’t think I got far with that, as they both sound the same to me.

It’s interesting to note the atmosphere, as to me it seems like there is a perception that by blogging, people can ‘beat the system‘, that people are ‘above the rest‘. Speak up and be heard. Was there a sense of ego and pride in the room, or were the people there truly ecstatic about this?

Sure the audience is bigger with the Internet, but actions speak louder than words. Similarly actions would also be pointless unless they are communicated, which could be prevented so by censorship.

Though it cannot be doubted that the Internet provides a unique platform in voicing your opinions about anything. A platform that all other forms of media, cannot compete with. Does this make it special? Yes it does, but special enough to be exempted from laws? Well thats for you to decide.

My opinion is that it enables us to communicate better with each other. On its own, it is merely an extension to a previous system. An extension that doesn’t really add anything new, but increases its effectiveness by leaps and abounds.

If you’ve read Lawrence Lessig’s Code v2 (of which I’ve only read a good large portion off), he’ll illustrate how Code is Law, and how it is inevitable that the Internet will be regulated. Programmers should be able to grok this quite easily. Basically, the code we write, is the rules that will govern the cyberspace. Lets say you would like to deny access to Google, or something, then the code will aid in governing this.

To me, it seems inevitable that the Internet will be regulated. Now how much regulation, and how will it be conducted is most important issue. In the context of blogging will regulation be done by the blog publishers/authors? Will the users mature fast enough, and regulate themselves? Know what should be spoken of, and know what should not. Or will code dictate what is safe. A balance needs to be found, and I hope that it will lie in the first two, for the second can provide false positives with the myriad of information out there. It also sounds like the beginning of a Orwellian society.

Overall to me, it was an ‘okay‘ event, also at tad boring at times (at least for me). Though by the end of it, I didn’t know what their objective was.

• Increase public awareness?
• Beat the system?
• Protect the future of the Internet?
• Finding a common balance?
• All of the above?
• None of the above?

By the end of this, I was wondering how can I contribute in anyway. Sadly nothing really sparked into my mind, so I walked off leaving nothing more than a warm seat.

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