Preface

Hi there, and thanks for reading.

So this is my sociology 149 blog that I have (stupidly) been neglecting until crunch time at the end of the quarter. As the title may have indicated to you, I've gone in with the idea of writing about censorship of information, specifically regarding internet censorship. For the first post, I wanted to address why I thought this was a pertinent issue.

    In my opinion, the internet is unlike anything the world has ever seen, and it continues to grow in ways that we cannot fathom. A few years back, when smart phones started to really proliferate through my social groups, one of my friends said "you're no longer allowed to ask questions; all the answers are in your pocket." While this is a bit of a generalization, I find it to be a very poignant one. The internet, in a lot of ways, is the closest thing we've come to a complete summation of the knowledge of mankind. If it is known, it is most likely on the internet somewhere, although it may take a bit of research to do it.

    However, the internet is more than just wikipedia and specialized forums. With the onset of social media, we've created an entire ecology of communication that has not existed prior. Never before was I able to rate the onion quality of my local sandwich shops on a ten point scale and have those 12 page reviews available to a maintenance worker in India. Granted, that's an unlikely scenario (first problem: I really hate onions) but the fact that facebook, twitter, blogging, and all other social media are part of a remarkably new system of expression is very true.

    One of my favorite writers wrote something to the effect of "these first few years of uncontrolled internet browsing have been like the wild west was. There are very few enforced (or really enforceable) rules, and most people could do what they wanted, provided they had the skills and know how to do so. The west, however, ended when it was settled and fenced off, and soon enough we're all going to look like people who can't cope with all the new rules and are standing around wearing funny hats." As it currently stands, the internet is the major frontier available to the common man. It is still somewhat amorphous, and I would hazard a guess that within three years, we'll have new applications for it that we hadn't thought of today that will drastically impact our lives. That being said, I think there is a strong demand to regulate the web. As with any unexplored land, there are a lot of dangers (malware, 419 scams, identity theft) and a lot of undesirable content. (those who've taken the plunge into places like 4chan are keenly aware of this)

While I don't believe in the inevitability of eventual censorship and regulation, I do think the web will change, and I think the question of acceptability and monitoring web access and usage will be a major debate in the upcoming years. In this blog, I hope to point out some of the earliest battles where this is taking place, and to try to give a few examples to what will probably become a major conversation for all of us.

NEXT UP: Egypt! and what it meant for censorship. Also, I'll be starting my media diary this week. I predict more computer time than should be considered reasonably healthy, considering I take coding classes and also browse the web as my primary form of entertainment.