Hello, everybody. It’s time for Lottie and Vinice to give a presentation. As you all have attended the lesson, you will know that our presentation will be something about the “Online Communities”.
An online community is a virtual community that exists online whose members enables its existence through taking part in membership ritual, for example Facebook. According to Howard Rheingold, virtual community is a “Social aggregation that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace”
In Julian Dibbell’s article, the “rape” in LambdaMoo was a virtual sexual offense. Mr. Bungle, who rapped those female characters, by typing words! However, the victims really feel hurt not only mentally, but also physically! Thus, some players asked for toading Mr. Bungle though they had already turned down the LambdaMoo’s principal to a technician. In our presentation, we will focus on two aspects: the boundary of virtual space V.S. real life and the regulation of virtual communities. In our presentation, we will focus on two aspects: the boundary of virtual space V.S. real life and the legitimacy in virtual communities.
Apart from the victims in LambdaMoo, there are numerous cases which online users gain real happiness, discontents, or even cry by the affection of virtual reality. We’ve discovered that people who influenced by the communities the most are the online games player. They claimed that they can do everything through this virtual world, for instance, killing people, destroying things, purchasing valuable things, etc. However, online game addiction can make people mix up virtual world and the reality. There was a news in 2003, a young boy suicide because of his sword stolen by the others.
Another point that we will include in our presentation is the legitimacy of the cyber behaviors. Cyber Manhunt is a common word in the cyber world. Netizens will disclose the personal information of the “Target” who did something wrong or immoral in order to draw support from the great power of other Netizens. People who being disclosed suffer huge stress or even want to commit suicide. Although there are rules that limit netizens to open the personal detail of the others, the situation is still cannot control. It brings several questions to us. Netizens always claimed that those “victims” are worth to suffer from those condemnatory comments. There is no responsibility about their condemnatory discourse. They can speak their mind without reticence. From the case of cyber manhunt, there are several questions want to discuss with all of you.
Should we regulate speech in cyberspace with the reality?
Should there any responsibility to our discourse on cyberspace?
Who has the authority to judge the behavior of others netizens? The webmaster? Or the other netizens?
More cases and details will be discussed during the presentation. See you all in tomorrow tutorial!
Since the cyberspace as well as the internet is something still very new for us, it actually brings many problems to the society, just like the “rape” case you mantioned. I think it is not a problem of should or should not regulate the cyberspace, it is a question of how to what extent we regulate the cyberspace, since there is rare that there is something won't be regualted in modern society, for example, even freedom of speech is being regualted, you can't slander someone when publishing something. So that, there is a law call "Computer Crimes Legislation", it's a example of regualting the internet behavior, and i think we need to do more in the future as long as the different "Computer Crimes" is being committed.
ReplyDeleteI agreed with what danny2468 said.
ReplyDeleteI think that there were too many cases of the internet bullying. First of all, citizen got to know what is happening around them. They have to protect themselves by not posting their important individual information on the web, because the power of seraching is unpredictable. Secondly, in order to set up laws to regulate the cyberspace, i think the government should focus more on the education since primary school. To teach the children have to respect human rights and hopes the situation could be a lot better in the next generation.
To me, Internet or the cyberspace is really close to us, let me said that we cannot not live without it. Thus cyberspace and real life is close to together and it is hard to seprate. As the reason like that we have the responsibility to our discourse on cyberspace. Of course, we do have more freedom to speak or post, however we still have to care about the others and protect ourself at the same time.
ReplyDeleteLastly, as zack said, education is another importatnt point. Teaching the next generationcan can help to decrease the "rape" case that we have disscuss in class.
When society is more and more developed, the cyberspace is also advanced in the same time and it is hard to separate with our daily life. For instance, many people through the internet to vent their opinion if they face some unfair situation or problem, and some forums become platform for people venting. In nowadays, many people emphasize that all people have freedom of speech in the society, so they think that they have right to talk their opinion in everywhere. Although all people have right to talk anything, we cannot ignore other people or users feeling when we talk our opinion in these forums. We cannot divulge other people's information to public and we need to respect others privacy. In fact, the government can set up the rule to protect people privacy in the social network and need to provide more courses to teach student in school and decrease bullying in the internet.
ReplyDeleteOnline community is a topic worth-discussing in the advanced Internet era. The boundary between virtual space and real life is become blur. Internet is a powerful institution which brings many questions appears. Like what you had mentioned in your presentation. Cyber bullying is very common in today’s society. Besides, many netizens think that they can do whatever they want in the cyberspace and do not need to have any responsibility. Since everyone can leave a message in the cyberspace, Internet is very hard and difficult to regulate. I do agree with Zack’s point, education is one of the improved methods. Moreover, we should pay more attention to our personal information and privacy. Before we post anything in the cyberspace, we should think twice. We cannot separate from the virtual space nowadays, we should protect ourselves. However, Government, Internet Service Provider and webmaster also have responsibility to regulate the cyberspace.
ReplyDeleteOnline community is an open platform to all users. It is a place very close to reality or even cannot separate. It is related to power relation in online world. The justice in there is based on the power, not the truth. It is based on the users’ experiences and their subjective perceptions for judging the real life issues. Please remember that they are judging the issues in the Internet which is a virtual place. The users think that they have freedom and need not take the responsibilities for their speeches. In fact, I agree that the internet users borrow the name of freedom to be the excuse for bullying others. It is because of lacking a general or effective regulation for the online opinions. The users need to protect themselves by have a high security of their personal information especially like the account of facebook. The regulation should be author by the common agreement. For example, Korea is a good example for the lose control of the Internet. The celebrities always are attacked by the anti-fans. Some of them cannot bear the pressure and commit suicide. The government needs to do something like needing the citizens’ code for registering in the forums which hope for searching the users who leave the offensive message.
ReplyDeleteOnline community is carrying internet bullying. Because of the open of internet, people are able to say anything in the internet. However there is no censorship for internet, no one knows what they said is real or not. I saw a post in forum that talk William Chan is died. Although it is not real, it hurt that person. Moreover just like the Gill incident before. The internet user keep on posting sex photos of Gill. To a larger extent, it bring worst impacts to Gill. It is meaningless sometimes.
ReplyDeleteThe advancement of technology and cyberspace could bring us both positive and negative impacts to our daily life, considering how we use the media. I do really think that everyone should take the responsibility to the discourse in cyberspace. If one's behavior being discussed and with misleading discourse could causing big trouble to his/her living. Not everyone would like to become famous in this way.
ReplyDelete