Find one story in the news media about the potential misuses of the internet (i.e. child stalkers, plagiarism, wikis, etc) and discuss whether you agree, disagree, how we might prevent it or how we might change the topic. Due March 10.
After searching the web I found many cases about child stalkers online and they all seemed to have a few common trends. I couldn’t narrow them down to write about just one so I decided to summarize them. Many of the cases were of child stalkers finding their victims on sites such as MySpace and facebook. The victims seem to be early teens and were both female and male. Most of the relationships between these predators and victims were because the children were allowing too much information to people that they didn’t know. In a few cases the child actually lied about ages and perused the relationship more so than the predator.
In a lot of these cases the predator actually met with the child and either had sexual relations or began to show up around the child unexpectedly; and many received jail time and or probation. Probation would include meeting with a therapist, a parole officer and registering their name in a neighborhood.
However, sadly, there were a few cases were the predator was let off the hook because of something the child did. I don’t know if I agree with that. If a 13 year old pursues a relationship with a 35 year old man and the man accepts the relationship and an imamate relationship is formed, I do believe that he should simply get off with probation. There was a case in Washington similar to this, and because the child had a criminal background the man was given a lessen punishment. Of course the court states that that didn’t happen and he received the punishment he deserved, however thousands of people on this site disagreed, including high officials in the city where the case was taking place.
I do believe that it is wrong for anyone to use the internet for things other than learning and anything that has a positive nature. I believe that using the internet for things such as porn, gossip sites, plagiarism, child stalking etc. is completely wrong. I wish that there was a way to control the internet to limit these misuses, without invading the privacy of the innocent or limiting the positive impact. With every new piece of technology that is made, another potential way to misuse the technology is created. I guess there always has to be some bad with every good thing.
Postman concludes the chapter with this thought, “…with its emphasis on progress without limits, rights without responsibilities, and technology without cost…” I believe that technology has indeed given us many rights without the responsibility of being morally correct. The responsibility should be there, and can be there if people choose to accept it. For example, anyone with internet access should follow a type of codebook and misuse the internet. Unfortunately that is never going to happen.
March 11, 2009 at 4:56 am
I also found an article that was about stalkers on the internet. It is sad that people use the internet to harm others. I too wish there was a way to moniter this, but unfortunately there isn’t. We also have the first ammendment that says we have the freedom of speech. As for children, it comes down to the parents. They have to have more control over their children and know more about what goes on in their life. Ask questions, check their email, check their texts, etc. They may hate you now, but when they’re adults they will understand.