Caroline Criado-Perez: Twitter Trolls

Caroline Criado-Perez run a successful campaign to ensure that a female remained on a Bank of England note. Her campaign brought about many congratulations from people such as Stella Creasy MP. However, shortly after she became the recipient of online abuse from trolls on Twitter.

http://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2014/01/29/sentencing-remarks-caroline-cirado-perez-case-show-court-s-tough-stance-trolls

Twitter users: Isabella Sorley and John Nimmo
"Die...you should have jumped in front of horses, go die; I will find you and you don’t want to know what I will do when I do... kill yourself before I do; rape is the last of your worries; I’ve just got out of prison and would happily do more time to see you berried; seriously go kill yourself! I will get less time for that; rape?! I’d do a lot worse things than rape you.”
The maximum sentence for a crime like this is a level five fine and a six month prison sentence

It could be argued that developments within technology and the increased use of social networking has not led to a more democratic society due to the issue of cyber-bullying. Therefore, it could be argued that there should be censorship on the Internet to a certain degree and that certain comments, such as the one above should be blocked by websites.

Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden is an American computer specialist and a former NSA member who disclosed top secret NSA documents to media outlets such as The Guardina, which reveal operational details of global surveillance apparatus run by the NSA.

http://swampland.time.com/2014/01/27/nsa-could-be-watching-you-play-angry-birds/
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/nsa-gchq-smartphone-app-angry-birds-personal-data

• The NSA and its UK counterpart GCHQ have been developing capabilities to take advantage of "leaky" smartphone apps, such as Angry Birds, that transmits users' private information across the internet, according to top secret documents."
• Smartphone applications like Google Maps, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and even games like  Angry Birds provide intelligence agencies with riches of data, including location tracking, address books, buddy lists and phone logs, according to documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and provided to the Guardian, the New York Times"
• Apps are now one of the agencies biggest sources of information

Charles Leadbeater 'We Think'

Key Ideas From The Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiP79vYsfbo

• Because of the Internet, millions of people can have their say.
• Information is everywhere (blogs, websites, videos) and peoples ideas take life when they are shared.
• New ideas usually come through conversation, therefore the Internet is a mass of conversation, creating mass innovation.
• The 20th century = mass production for mass consumption (factories, cars, TV). Whereas The 21st century = mass innovation (more ideas being shared by more people than ever before.
• Millions of people are creating games, worlds, knowledge, information and software.
• Mass innovation comes from communities as everyone leaves their piece. People are drawn to these communities in order to socialise and gain recognition.
• Motto of the generation growing up with the web is: 'We Think Therefore We Are'. This is good for democracy as more people will have a voice. (Equality and freedom, more people being creative)
• How do we protect what is private? Are we always safe sharing?
• In the past you were what you owned, now you are what you share

Key Quotations From The Website:

http://www.wethinkthebook.net/home.aspx 

• Our freedom has allowed us to be creative with tools that help us express ourselves through writing, making videos and composing music.
• "The web expands the scope for surveillance, not just by the state and corporations, but also by our peers and friends". For example, YouTube. 
• "Any indiscretion of youth could come back to haunt us thanks to a user- generated surveillance system of social networking in which everyone is keeping an eye on everyone else". This highlights that "nothing seems to be private anymore and that surely cannot be good for freedom". 
• Thanks to the web, more people have access to knowledge- helping education and innovation amongst poorer people in the world. Due to this, the web should be good for equality however it "mostly rewards those who are already well connected by allowing them to network together, reinforcing their privilege".
• "The Web seems to destroy as much as it creates"
• "No amount of amateur blogging will make up for well trained and funded investigative journalism"
• Negatives of the Web: not only a source for creativity and innovation but also for stalkers, paedophiles, terrorists and criminals who organise shadow networks for purposes beyond our control.  "The more connected we are the more opportunities for collaboration there should be, but the more vulnerable we also become".

Glossary:

Freedom- the state of being free or at liberty than in confinement or under physical restraint 

Creativity- the state or quality of being innovative 

Utopia- an ideal place or state

Collectivism- the political principle of centralized social and economic control

Blogosphere- made up of all blogs and there interconnectedness

Authoritarian- favouring complete obedience or subjection to authority as opposed to individual freedom 

Tom Daley

Social Networking:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2183494/Tom-Daleys-Twitter-troll-Reece-Messer-lives-benefits-bedsit-father-11-children.html 
The link above provides information about Tom Daley's experiences online with 'Twitter Trolls'.
After Tom unfortunately missed out on a medal during the London 2012 olympics for synchronised diving with Peter Waterfield, he was criticised/ confronted by twitter trolls online.
The young boy of whom was a similar age to Tom tweeted him saying "You let your dad down I hope you know that." Many of the public reacted to this tweet and classed it as a form of cyber bullying. This is because the previous year, Tom's dad Rob unfortunately died of brain cancer. Due to this, the comment made was insensitive and regarded as a form of bullying. Tom also reacted to the tweet and responded by stating "After giving it my all..you get idiots sending me this". This made Tom's followers aware of this and they therefore began giving their support.
The boy who tweeted this was consequently arrested on "suspicion of malicious communication".

'Coming Out' Video:
December 2nd 2013: Tom Daley came out as bisexual to his 2.4 million Twitter followers through a 5 minute video that he uploaded to YouTube. He also then posted the link on his Twitter account, making sure that it would be noticed by the majority. The video has currently reached 8,659,993 views on YouTube and 163,023 users have 'liked' the video. It also appears on the YouTube homepage under the title of 'Popular Now'.
Tom received mostly support from his fan base/ the public, whereas on the other hand some may argue why it has been made to be such a big thing as an individuals sexuality should not matter and that instead we should all focus on his talent at diving. However, big news institutions such as the Daily Mail and the Metro produced articles about the video almost instantly.
It could be argued that it was a good idea for Tom to create the video as he stated himself that he wanted his fans to hear from him himself, rather than have his words twisted within an interview. However, it could be argued that as he is an international sportsman coming out so publicly could affect where he competes such as The Middle East who do not support the gay community. It could also be argued that due to our interest in celebrity culture, coming out so publicly could have a negative impact.

Are Internet Institutions such as Google doing enough to combat illicit use of the Internet?

Examples:
Article on the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/18/uk-us-dark-web-online-child-abuse-internet

Information from the article:
Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt has announced that a strong team of 200 people have ‘cleaned up’ Google Search to target 100,000 terms that can be used to locate child sexual abuse images.  The company is now also showing warnings at the top of its search results for 13,000 queries.
YouTube has now created new technology, which identifies videos made my pedophiles. Google and Microsoft have now been working together in attempt of identifying child abuse images.
A transatlantic taskforce will now identify ways of targeting criminals/ pedophiles that use secret encrypted networks to distribute images of abuse.

Quote from Google’s executive chairman: "We've listened, and in the last three months put more than 200 people to work developing new, state-of-the-art technology to tackle the problem. We've fine-tuned Google search to prevent links to child sexual abuse material from appearing in our results."

Quote from Joanna Shields (Chief executive of London technology investment agency, Tech City, who previously worked for Google and Facebook): "It's vital that governments and industry work together to eradicate child abuse content from the internet, and that we mobilise the best and brightest in the technology industry to come up with innovative solutions."

BBC Article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24980765

100,000 search terms will now return no results that find illegal material and will trigger warnings that child abuse imagery is illegal.
David Cameron is responsible for welcoming the move. The National Crime Agency director said that tests show that the changes are working. Therefore, David Cameron argues that the next stage is to tackle the “dark web” where people share images online without making them publicly available. The image to the left shows what now comes up when key words are now typed into Google.

Microsoft’s General Manager: "It will be much harder to find that content on both Bing and Google. We are blocking content, removing content and helping people to find the right content or also sources of help should they need that,"

I think that Internet Institutions such as Google, Microsoft and Bing are doing a good job at attempting to combat illicit use of the Internet as they have blocked and removed various websites that contain forms of sexual child abuse. This has evidently had a positive impact overall as the NCA state that tests show that the changes are working and therefore it is harder for individuals to access illegal content through these search engines. However, I feel that the impact is not all beneficial because of the “dark web” where people share images and material online yet can keep their identities hidden. Overall I feel that Internet Institutions are making an effective decision through removing content, however there is still room for improvement.  

Essay Preparation

'We Media will make the world a more democratic place' Discuss
Examples:
http://syriangirlpartisan.blogspot.co.uk/ 

The Arab Spring: Revolution 2.0

Quotes from Wael Ghonim:

'The Internet will change politics in Egypt'

'Revolution 2.0 is a bold, moving story of the and the hope, courage and fearlessness it takes to start a revolution' 

'I thought that my anonymity was my power' 

'The power of the people is greater than the people in power'

'We used all available tools in order to communicate, collaborate and agree on a date, time, and location for the start of the revolution'

'His release in February 8th was seen as a key moment in the revolution'

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2013/04/arabspring/