Tuesday, July 27, 2010

1.1.4 Social Issues

1.1.4 Social Issues




The widespread introduction of networking has introduced new social, ethical, and political problems. Let us just briefly mention a few of them; a thorough study would require a full book, at least. A popular feature of many networks are newsgroups or bulletin boards whereby people can exchange messages with like-minded individuals. As long as the subjects are restricted to technical topics or hobbies like gardening, not too many problems will arise.



The trouble comes when newsgroups are set up on topics that people actually care about, like politics, religion, or sex. Views posted to such groups may be deeply offensive to some people. Worse yet, they may not be politically correct. Furthermore, messages need not be limited to text. High-resolution color photographs and even short video clips can now easily be transmitted over computer networks. Some people take a live-and-let-live view, but others feel that posting certain material (e.g., attacks on particular countries or religions, pornography, etc.) is simply unacceptable and must be censored. Different countries have different and conflicting laws in this area. Thus, the debate rages.



People have sued network operators, claiming that they are responsible for the contents of what they carry, just as newspapers and magazines are. The inevitable response is that a network is like a telephone company or the post office and cannot be expected to police what its users say. Stronger yet, were network operators to censor messages, they would likely delete everything containing even the slightest possibility of them being sued, and thus violate their users' rights to free speech. It is probably safe to say that this debate will go on for a while.

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