Beyond Words

Does Internet promote violence or non-violence?
Nowadays, cybercrimes make part of daily events. Internet is like a dark street in an unsecure district, if you are not wary you can be abused. I talked in an earlier post about paedophiles and how they used cruelly the Internet. But, alone before their computer, people can be encouraged by the violence you can see on the web, because it has real influence. You can find a lot of incitations of violence like terrorist or racist ones. There is a lot of bad content. And for example, there is this story of the guy in Virginia Teck. Actually the murderer had "warned" the others students in a video, and nobody believed him. By getting people apart from the rest of the society, Internet can be a danger, but should we blame Internet for all that? Isn't just people making a bad use of Internet? It is one of the ways people express themselves and it is hard to think they will only do it peacefully. Actually, it is even impossible.Violence is kind of the proof of the real freedom of expression on the web...



But we also have to keep in mind that Internet promotes transparency ; it is difficult to hide during a long time, they will track you down. Moreover, linking people and creating networks, we are getting closer to everyone, this is promoting friendship, knowing each other, learning from each other. The peer to peer is a great example of the will of sharing. To me, it is kind of revolutionnary because I would not have thought such a thing could exist and actually work, because it is just solidarity and sharing for free. Freedom is the key thing on the web, thanks to sharing softwares. Some people can promote violence on the web, but the Internet itself is about sharing and creating a virtual place where everybody can cohabit. Of course you have to be wary and protect yourself cleverly.

Alexandre Astier  by  ceciliabertin

We all know that the new collaborative media are very practical. Indeed, everyone writes about what he knows well, and thus we can gather informations written by experts. But this ability to generate content can obviously become a danger, because this website has become a reference as a search engine in the web.
Jonathan Zittrain states "Wikipedia’s content can be copied, modified, and put up elsewhere by anyone else at any time" an American professor of Internet law at Harvard Law School. Indeed, the content is not checked enough by the administrators. For example, in the article I wrote earlier about Alexandre Astier, I made some mistakes on purpose, but they do not have been corrected.



But we can go further, the content on Wikipedia can be false, or worse, distorted to serve the advantage of some people. For example, the brands can totally modify the article about the company and the image of the brand, but also the figures about the consumers...

Moreover, as an encyclopedia, Wikipedia has an objective way of edit texts. But some people can modify an article about someone they hate and do vandalism on the page which is dedicated to this person/brand/political party/football club...

Therefore, Wikipedia is a weak place to obtain knowledge. But if you want to get information about something, it can definitely be useful if you are wary and stand back the subjectivity.

Let's check my wikipedia article here

Welcome on The Internet Land, or in antoher words : the I-Land. After getting a connexion, be sure to respect somes rules to behave yourself on the Internet!



1. Watch your back. Check your privacy settings, Internet can become a jungle.
2. Be ready to learn everyday, because things change non-stop on the web.
3. Open your mind and your eyes, don't stay behind.
4. Get rid of passive entertainments, be active in the Internet : be part of the web 2.0.
5. Share with your friends, interact!
6. Check up your sources when you gather information.
7. Experience online activities (shopping, learning, even dating...)
8. Think and act responsible.
9. Post comments on my blog.
10. Enjoy!

Books are part of our lives. I think about the tales our parents read to us before sleeping, but I also refer to the ones that changed forever our vision of the world, that formed our personalities, and the ones we could not detach from after midnight...



Now, the ebooks are part of this great phenomenon of digitalization of the human work. We are succeeding in realizing the myth of the Library of Alexandria : we are gathering all the information in one place, a virtual place : the net. If a long time ago we lost the human work because of a fire, I am afraid of loosing our culture because of mass media. Of course, ebooks would make things easy : we could buy books downloading files and so we would have a better access to litterature. But I recommend you another way : the book troc! You share your book list with other people, and you choose the books you want to read. It's free, easy and it creates human contact and community activity!


Anyway, ebooks are here and I might buy one for travelling. As I have a notebook, this lovely little computer, I could definitely have an ebook. It is really practical because you can have several books in one object. But I will never stop reading real books. I just love holding the object, I love the smell of old books...