The Internet & its Policies....

Langdon Winner’s article, “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” really got me thinking. Before reading this excerpt I never really gave thought to thinking about the internet that way, but now I completely see where Winner is coming from. There is a lot to discuss when talking about politics and the internet; net neutrality, open source software, copyright, and the list goes on an on. I don’t think many internet users are aware of the politics taking place on the internet, or they don’t pay any attention to it.

People tend to think of the internet to be open to everyone, all opinions are welcome, an unlimited amount of websites; well at least that’s what I think. You can find anything on the internet and post anything you want, but there are websites out there that are discriminatory, perhaps they have a deal with another company. Like, Safari, perhaps. It’s the default browser I use on my Mac, but built into Safari in the upper right hand corner is the Google search. Why couldn’t it have been Bing, or Yahoo? They must have deal worked out, therefore Safari uses probably go to Google before trying any other search engine. I know I’m definitely a victim of that. I can guarantee my entire household doesn’t even realize which search engine they use, nor do they care. So Google wins because some Safari users just do what’s easiest, and the Google search engine is right at the top of the page.

Winner also goes on to discuss how the roads and bridges in Long Island were built so that buses weren’t able to drive on these highways – one of Robert Moses’ ideas. His reason for this was to satisfy his biased and racist attitude. He did this because most people that owned cars during his time were upper class whites, while the poor minorities had to ride the bus. Internet can be looked at in the same way, like I described above. While at this point it seems like there isn’t a lot of net neutrality out there, John Wu is fighting for the cause.

In Wu’s article, “Why You Should Care About Network Neutrality,” brings up some very valid points. Wu doesn’t want the internet to turn into a capitalist structure, where the people with the most money are in charge. And I see where he’s coming from because it seems like everything else in our world is already run by capitalists, and the internet should be an escape from that. People should be allowed to post whatever they want and have the same capabilities as anyone else. Say the Apple website is much faster and easier to access than a smaller, unknown website. This isn’t how the internet is supposed to work. Everyone should have an equal say and equal access.

In class, we also discussed cyber-bullying that takes place on the Internet, fortunately something I haven’t encountered in my life. I didn’t even realize how big of a deal bullying was on the internet because I don’t participate in many forums where you can post anonymously. I am aware of Formspring though; the recent phenomenon, that seems to appeal mostly to high school kids. I would never create a Formspring because you are asking for trouble right off the bat. People are encouraged to ask anything they would like, which may include some form of bullying, such as “Why are you so ugly, why do you wear those clothes, you are too fat,” and so on. Although some people ask legitimate questions, most questions I have seen are there to cause problems. Because people can post these comments and questions anonymously, they tend to hold nothing back. The user can’t trace the question back to anyone. One benefit with other social networking sites as Facebook and Twitter is that you can’t post anything anonymously. You have an account that you maintain, and you used to have to have a college e-mail in order to join Facebook, which I thought was a great idea because it was originally for college students to keep in touch. Although some of these policies have loosened on Facebook, it is still a great place to keep in touch with each other, without the fear of cyber bullying.

There is so much to think about when it comes to these topics. I could continue to go on and on about them. I hope the future of the Internet and its politics doesn’t go too far because I believe everyone should have a fair say. The internet is one of the only ways where anyone can say what they want to say and have anyone in the world read it. If that right became limited, well, it just wouldn’t be right.