Your face on facebook, Watch our for Netizens (or not!)
In China, the Internet is equivalent to streets in democratic countries where people gather to create a voice and spill frustration……
Apparently a homeless man who was living an anonymous life on the streets of China was suddenly in the spotlights when an amateur photographer had taken his picture and posted it on the Internet. This photographer could have been you or me. (Although I haven’t been in China yet). It could be my fiend K, who’s leaving soon for Australia, and posts many pictures of Thailand on Facebook from unknown Thai faces. In the case of the unknown man in China, many more people started taking his picture while he was roaming the streets. People were attracted by the way he dressed and his good looks. As more and more of his pictures started to appear online he became famous and the new celebrity was named ‘Brother Sharp’. It turns out that this man had been roaming the streets for three years. Because he had lost his wife and father in a car accident he suffered from a mental illness. His family was very happy to have found him with the “help” of Internet.
The point here is the power of the net in our societies. Certain actions like this without asking Brother Sharp’s permission may be considered invasion of his privacy. It was also the information spread by the netizens that helped support an unnoticed person. Another new tech word: netizens…..mmmm I like it!
In China many information are still censored and people end up in jail for being too open. People (netizens) get arrested for posting information seen as threats by the government and many pieces of information were deleted from the Net.
How can we create good AUP’s? What are we going to do with our Middle School (netizens) kids if they make the wrong choices in posting information that’s inappropriate? What are the consequences? Can we delete their stuff?
