Writen by David Stern.
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Chaos of Information
Recently there has been a spying story in the Israeli army
(read here), which was reported in the Israeli press
only on last Thursday (April 08, 2010), after it was reported in the world press a few months ago. Until then it was censored.
Censorship today is not an efficient thing. A country can enforce it only in its territory, while many people collect information sourced in
different countries in various ways, such as imported newspapers, satellite television stations and especially the internet.
Is it worth trying to censor information in the 21st century? On one hand, countries have their reasons to keep some information private, like
for security reasons. On the other hand, there is the freedom of information – people have the natural right to publicize and access information.
Today, in the web 2.0 era, people also have the tools to publicize information worldwide and to access it. Every seven year old kid who has
just learned to read and write can open a blog and post in it, chat with other people around the world, share files and data, and nobody can
physically stop him.
Countries that do a lot of censorship, like China and Iran, have a hard time doing it. Iran doesn't let foreign reporters to come in, but
information about the violence still came out by people who reported on Twitter with their mobile phones.
The issue is not only a matter of national security. Here is an example for the personal aspect of it: I have read an article in some website
about two 20 year old twin sisters from Australia that found out one morning on Facebook that their little brother was dead. They immediately
asked their mother about it, and their mother didn't know a thing. She only knew that her young son went out with friends last night. She
called the police, and the police told her that her son was killed in a car crash. They intended to send an officer to the family's residence
first thing in the morning, but one of the boy's friends was quicker writing about it on Facebook.
I think that the freedom of information is a good and important thing. It extends our knowledge, especially with the latest technologies. Is
the ease of publicizing and accessing information getting things out of control? It depends who you ask. Information is power, and thanks to
the internet, the power controlled by the people.
April 11th, 2010.
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