Is the internet a good or bad thing?

[dombanks]

wasnt it the proliferation of the porn industry that helped push the video/streaming etc that we all enjoy along? sounds a very knee jerk reaction. 1984 rock on.

[blue ass fly]

" porn , video and knee jerking" in one paragraph

Wheres the moderator when you need him

[Kingster]

For me it's a good thing - it's 100% behind how I make a living these days!

 

If the net goes down, so does my income - I'd have to find another line of work if it went away for more than a month.

 

Scary how that has happened in such a short space of time though!

[Dommo]

If the internet didn't exist I'd have to actually do work... a scary prospect.

[corsechris]

wasnt it the proliferation of the porn industry that helped push the video/streaming etc that we all enjoy along? sounds a very knee jerk reaction. 1984 rock on.

 

Colleague of mine delights in telling us that the first HD video production was porn......

 

I recall a former manager bursting into the workshop all excited as he'd just managed to dial in to CERN. I think their home page had about 20 links at the time.

 

I do get the concern that policy makers are being steered by some questionable groups, but it's ever been thus. Arguably it's more transparent now than it used to be, but I suspect the same old shadowy figures still call the real shots. Also think some regulation wouldn't be a bad thing.

 

As noted though, can't put this particular Geni back in the bottle.

[s2rrr]

Ched Evans tried by the courts now tried by the media including internet. Different debate but relevant.

 

Bob

[Dibby]

We have the grumble industry to thank for quite a bit. Wasn't it them who settled the HD DVD vs BluRay competition? If we left it up to industry/ governments to decide for us it would take for ever and cost a fortune to make everyone happy. Once grubleflicks started coming out on BluRay, the film industry followed suit and the decision was made, consumers don't have to manage 2 different formats of physical disc. Even the BluRay is becoming outdated now with streaming and digital content - I don't have a BluRay/ DVD/ CD player in the house, everything is done off a home server PC now. 

 

Personally, I like the internet, it has brought far more good than bad to mankind's progress, I work in engineering where posting hard copies of reports and drawings before the internet must have taken for ever to get anything built. How did they build anything without pumping in a billion manhours to manage physical drawings and reports?

 

There are shady sides out there but that's what ignore functions are put there for. Trolling is all the stuff that would traditionally be said behind peoples' backs in snide comments out of earshot, it's just we can see it now. Nasty comments are nothing new and you do have to have thick skin sometimes but it's nothing that hasn't been said before.

[jeff oakley]

As I said in my opening post, the thing that is concerning to me is the influence that a small vociferous group can and are hiving on the way public opinion is formed.

Brake and the like have pushed a one sided argument on the speed they want cars to travel at and have used the net to great effect. I wrote a piece for our local paper where a reduction in the speed limit was asked for because people would not use the smelly underpass, explaining logic would be to clean the underpass and stop people p******** in it. I was branded the most dangerous man in Yate by some who missed the point completely and just banged on repeating the "speed kills and you will cause deaths" comments that are prevelant. However it was the ease of how those who had an agenda it took it to such a level with people from outside the area jumping in and shouting down anyone who had a reasoned point.

Before the internet there was always "angry from Tunbridge Wells" letters and campaign groups, but now it takes no effort.

Several cases have concerned me, Christopher Jeffries, weird looking arrested by the police in connection with the murder of Jo Yeats. The internet along with the police destroyed his life an innocent man, guilty in the eyes of Twitter Facebook etc.

I want those in charge to not do knee jerk reactions to what is trending and listen to the organised groups who want their own way which is not always the correct thing for us in the long term.

My local MP has a forum that he asks for views on in regards to certain things. You could say it is democracy at it's best but the cynic in me see's he is basically running questions to win his local popularity contest, easy with the internet, much harder if he had to go knocking on doors. And guess what the ones that get the most hits are led by the single cause groups trying to sway opinion.

The link below from the Daily Mail shows others feel the same as I do, regardless of the person involved as I could not care about him any less, but I care about justice, balance and not allowing an electronic mob to rule.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2898151/The-football-rapist-vile-courts-hand-justice-not-Twitter-mob-writes-MELISSA-KITE.html

[Dibby]

To be fair though, the Daily Mail isn't exactly a balanced source of news. IMO their journalists are worse than the twitter mob at filling the country full of hate because lots of Britain will dismiss the twitter mob as idle chat on the internet but believe a newspaper as their source of world knowledge and regurgitate the stories as if they know it to be based on fact. 

[jeff oakley]

I agree it can be, however this article is well written and balanced. Matthew Parish in the times did a similar piece recently as well.

[Dibby]

No matter how well written, it is still one person's opinion, not fact, and should be treated as such.

 

The Ched Evans case is always going to be a contentious issue, the papers love contentious issues because they have to put in minimal effort to whip up a frenzy of opinion and it sells more papers. That's what people like Melissa Whatsherface and Matthew Parrish are ultimately paid for.

[Lyonspride]

Several cases have concerned me, Christopher Jeffries, weird looking arrested by the police in connection with the murder of Jo Yeats. The internet along with the police destroyed his life an innocent man, guilty in the eyes of Twitter Facebook etc.

 

 

I'm going to pick on this one in particular....

 

The problem there was the tabloid press, the guy was picked up by Police for questioning and the media spread the word, it basically turned into a witch hunt via social media, amongst social conformists who are incapable or unwilling to form their own balanced opinions.

 

What the internet does have is groups of people who bring order to the insanity spread by the intellectually challenged majority.

The media attacks these groups, calls them hackers, accuses them of breaking into peoples bank accounts, brands them as criminals, bundles them in with actual cybercrime gangs. Again, the media is just attacking anything that threatens their hold over the people.

 

A witch hunt is a witch hunt, the internet allows it to spread faster, but ultimately it would have happened anyway. Social media isn't the internet, social media is a way for non geeky types to impose something they know and understand (gossip) into a world they otherwise do not.

 

Think back several decades, how many men (or women) found themselves on the receiving end of a witch hunt and were wrongly convicted of terrible crimes as a result? Many of those cases wouldn't happen these days, because people have access to information outside their social sphere and outside the influence of the media.

 

The media/press can be bought, everyone knows the BBC is strongly conservative for example, they might take the occasional shot at the conservatives, but it's only ever for show. You can't however buy the support of the internet, which is why powerful/rich people want to censor and filter it.