ljudska.prava.1dejanr,
Situacija u ex.yu se sve češće koristi u raznim diskusijama kao alegorija
ili poređenje... evo jednog teksta iz martovskog BYTE-a koji se, na neki
način, bavi ljudskim pravima, ali u domenu elektronske pošte... Zove se,
možete misliti, Bosnia On-Line:
TITLE: Bosnia On-Line
Go on-line looking for a democratic forum, and you're more likely to find
alt.vicious. xenophobic.nastiness
George Bond
Once upon a time, some of us slogging through the mud of the information cow
path believed computer-based communications would build cohesive, coherent
communities. We saw conferencing systems as the vehicle to bring people
together in great democratic forums. In our fantasies, we saw the realization
of what the early Greek philosophers had described and dreamed.
We saw democracy. It was a world where it didn't matter what sex or color
or age you were, or if you could see or speak or walk or use your hands, or if
you were short or tall or skinny or fat. It didn't matter where you were born
or where you lived. We saw a world where all that mattered was what you could
contribute to your society. People would be judged on what they made of
themselves, not what they were born to or what was inflicted on them.
Boy, were we wrong!
Instead of leading people to a golden age, the Internet and other
conferencing systems are simply reflecting the world at large. Instead of
becoming a great gathering place for the democratic exchange of ideas, the
Internet in particular is becoming a fragmented world riddled with enclaves of
xenophobic, crabby egotists.
As far as I know, no one has actually been killed on the Internet yet. Most
likely, however, this is because no one has been able to figure out how to
send a zillion volts from point A to point B and fry somebody who posted an
offending message.
A story made the rounds a few months ago concerning some political
correctness at a university in California. A department assistant was told to
set up message areas for students on a university computer. The students--of
both sexes--requested private, gender-specific discussion areas in addition to
a mixed area. Later, some of the students filed a complaint that discussions
in one of the closed areas were offensive. The assistant who was running the
system is now in deep trouble for doing exactly what his constituents demanded.
Old-line netnicks react to newcomers with aol.com at the end of their
electronic addresses, with the Internet equivalent of Bosnia's ethnic
cleansing. Say the wrong thing in a group--something as ``provocative'' as ``I
kind of like my Newton'' in a DOS area--and you'll likely find yourself
splattered with vitriol for days. Somali have extended their country's clan
warfare from the East African deserts to the soc.culture.somalia newsgroup.
The thought police on campuses try to impose sanctions on Internet use that
doesn't conform with their beliefs about the way things ought to be. They
patrol the byways of the Internet looking for violations of their standards.
One university administration shut down several newsgroups because they
carried sexually explicit material that the administrators thought--but
apparently never got a lawyer's opinion--would violate state obscenity
statutes. Students screamed. The faculty senate screamed. The ACLU told the
university it was wrong. The administrators backed off.
Lawyers Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, who spammed (i.e., cross-posted
the same message) the Internet with ads seeking aliens who wanted help getting
green cards, learned the hard way about the fanatic antibusiness bias of many
Internet dwellers. Spamming is thoughtless, but the Constitution doesn't say
freedom of speech can't be practiced as widely as possible. Unfortunately,
other users, even in generally polite environments, such as CompuServe, tend
to respond to spammed messages by flaming. And the flames are seldom
restrained. Of course, flames are just another expression of free speech.
Churlish, but free, speech.
Of course, on-line systems have yielded some wonderful benefits--shut-ins
gaining access to the world, citizens using BBSes in political campaigns, and
college dropouts completing their degrees electronically. But these, just as
the bad things, simply reflect the world at large.
So what's to be done? Can the data highway be a democracy, a welcoming
community where people help each other?
Sure. So can the world.
How?
I don't know, but let's keep working on it.