“On the one hand, society has an interest in keeping unwanted information away from children. On the other hand, society as a whole has an interest in maximizing open communication.”

Quote from Blown to Bits.

This quote is from the authors Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen, and Harry Lewis  of Blown to Bits.  This quote outlines the class’ entire discussion last thursday. We debated whether or not censorship like SOPA was a limit to our freedom of speech and liberty, and we also discussed various notions such as cursing in public, and whether that should be delt with on an individual basis (fines for cursing in public) or if parents should be the ‘responsible’ ones when it comes to keeping their children away from vulgar language.

We find ourselves at a stalement on the legacy of the internet. Should we protect others from the content which is suitable for them, or should we make it individuals concerns to avoid such content? This question plagues us as we head into the modern world we live in, where the internet is a thriving, central aspect of our everyday lives. Could you live without the internet? At college age, we have only had the internet since we were in elementary school. We have only had cell phones since we were 16. Now, both of these are intertwined into our daily lives and many people use these technologies as a type of ‘scaffolding’ to the brain, that is, that we are able to extend our minds out of their normal usefulness into our technology.

I.e -> We scaffold our brains by writing down notes in class. We are not able to efficiently remember everything that we hear, so we write it down so we can access this outside information like an external hard-drive to our minds.

Going back to DOPA, we are able to see a fight for what is right and what is wrong, what we are allowed to write and what is wrong. What is publicly visible and what is user domain. We enter the age where, whether we like it or not, the internet is one of the most powerful tools humans have ever invented, with its uses still growing daily. And the government sees that is constantly growing. It is going to take a long time to get ahold of the domains and the restrictions that are allowed of the internet.

We have had WARS over our freedom, we are going to have fights and debated over the freedom of the internet.