The Internet Is Freedom

I had no idea that so few companies were responsible for the television I watch and the news I read. It’s more than a little daunting to realize that Disney’s moratorium of ABC talking bad about the parent company could extend to every conglomerate giant and its media offspring.

However, it’s more pressing to read about ‘net neutrality’. Throughout history, large technological advances have been crippled shortly after their advent by control freaks. The radio is no longer free, but runs on an advertising business model – it interrupts the perfect segue into the next song; the announcer’s voice telling me about his morning traffic jam atop the intro is not what I want to wake up to! Television, the other big monument of the last seventy-five years, is incredibly commercialized nowadays. Take a look at the pie chart below that shows how much is spent per year on advertising:


image taken from bridgeratings.com

The article snippet writes that the large corporations who control Internet access (i.e. the phone and cable folk) want to become gatekeepers for the public. Who has made it their responsibility to decide what we cannot view for ourselves in the privacy of our own home? We pay to get the connection; I reckon we should be allowed to use the Internet as we see fit. (without of course, delving into the miscreants of the human cesspool, because they are obviously outliers of the population.)

The Internet should remain free, as it has been since its’ conception. If it isn’t, it ceases to be what it has become. The information highway represents free speech among other things – it would be disastrous for that to be snatched away by greedy executives.

Spiral Of Silence.. no more

The spiral of silence is a mass media/communication theory by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann that “asserts that a person is less likely to voice an opinion on a topic if one feels that one is in the minority for fear of reprisal or isolation from the majority.” ( Wikipedia)
I feel that’s a lot like peer pressure in social groups.
Because of this fear of isolation, people only hold conversations with like-minded people or don’t speak their mind at all. However, with the advent of the Internet and its anonymity, this theory has dissolved. People form chat groups and forum threads for a variety of topics; it has made it easier to find people with common interests that one might otherwise be shunned for.
The Internet grants equality within cyberspace. The person on the other end of the chatting session has no idea if you’re black, white, rich or poor. Conversation exists and happens for the sake of conversation, for a chance of being listened to. People bond over having someone to talk to, someone to pour their heart out to. It’s a fundamental human desire, to have someone listen to your ideas, hopes, dreams and fears. The Internet has broken down the barrier of rejection and granted the wish that nerds and princesses can exist in the same space. (much like The Breakfast Club, I feel!)


photo found through Google Images