Examples of harm: 1. Pornography - a lot of rapists and sexual offenders start off with pornography 2. Horror - screamers and horror movies, that traumatize people, especially children 3. Violence and gore - movies that contain excessive amounts of violence and gore 4. cyber bullying - social networks or blogs flaming or flaming through gaming 5. leaking personal information accidentally accidentally through social networks 6. false information - websites that give wrong information 7. involvement in criminal acts, such as piracy 8. Cheat money - black markets
THIS HOUSE BELIEVES THE I NTERNET BRINGS BRINGS MORE HARM THAN GOOD The Internet is a network connecting computers across the world. It has its origins in military and academic projects dating back to the 1960s, but began to be more widely available from the end of the 1980s. The creation of the World Wide Web (1989) and web browsers (early 1990s) gave ordinary people easy ways of getting around the Internet. Over the past fifteen years, millions of different websites have been set up, giving people the chance to shop, do business, play, learn and communicate online. Over the same period it has become much easier, cheaper and faster to get online in order to do these things. Now more than 30% of the global population have access to the Internet. Continent-wise, this breaks down as: Europe: 58.3%, North America 78.3%, Latin America 36.2%, Africa 11.4%, Asia 23.8% and Oceania 60.1%.[1] 60.1%.[1] These figures are growing all the time, as technology designed to access the Internet becomes both more mobile and much cheaper to produce. The arrival of the Internet has vastly changed the way in which people search and access information. News travels more quickly than ever, and current affairs can be discussed all over the world instantaneously via forums, blogs, and social networks. Search engines like Google and Wikipedia have now become ubiquitous starting points for researching anything from minor queries to academic reports. Many people also maintain social links through the Internet with services such like Facebook, Skype, and Flickr, to name but a few. Research in the UK has shown that the average adult spends around 22 hours 15 minutes online each month.[2] month .[2] Some believe the Internet is dominating the lives of its users. Nicholas Carr in his book The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing the Way we Think, Read and Remember ,[3] that all this time spend online cannot be healthy, whereas other have cheered the increased possibilities for research, meeting new people and keeping in contact with one another. The strongly contested debate remains as to whether the internet is an active force for good in society or not.
POINTS FOR
POINTS AGAINST
The quality of information online cannot always be relied upon
POINT The Internet has become a major source of information for many people. However, online information has usually not gone through the same checks as newspaper articles, books or factual television programming. There is a higher risk that some of the facts or quotations from a particular source in an article are false. Whereas newspapers might lose customers if people find out they have been „selling lies‟, a blog and other online content can be easily created and uploaded as well as just as quickly being deleted. If people base their opinions on the information they find online, they could well be basing their opinion on false information. Take for example the 2006 conspiracy film Loose Change which has had millions of views. A report from the thinktank Demos in a report titled “Truth, Lies and the Internet: A Report into Young People‟s Digital Fluency ”[ 1] state that the film contains a “...litnay of errors, misattributions, vague
insinuations, subtle misquotes, and outright falsehoods...” Since the Internet gives equal space to material of greatly varying quality, the degree to which the internet can been viewed as being a total force for good is drawn into question. If an informed society is an empowered society it therefore stands to reason that a misinformed society is disempowered society. [1] Bartlett and Miller, Truth, Lies a nd the Internet. A Report into Young People‟s Digital Fluency. 2011
COUNTERPOINT The Internet gives millions of people access to information they would not otherwise have had, which is a huge benefit. People who read the news, offline or online, are not inherently dupable, they like all people do not simply accept messages they are, to varying degrees, critical of what they read and not simply passive. When people spend a lot of time reading online content they can differentiate between bloggers who are untrustworthy or extremely biases from bloggers who carefully refer to legitimate sources. The problem of bad information in news-making is not unique to the Internet; there are lots of trashy magazines and poorly researched news content in traditional print channels of communication as well. We learn in formal education to double-check our sources and not believe everything we read, and we can apply that skill while surfing the Internet.
It is not enough to say that the internet contans falsehoods to dismiss the value of the internet. All mediums contain falsehoods whether intentional or unintentional but there is a much broader picture that needs to be considered in terms of the ability of the internet to provide people with freedom of expression and freedom of information, if it being a free for all has the downside of some falsehoods then thaty is a price worth paying.
The Internet is a threat to privacy
POINT Everyone‟s privacy can be greatly harmed by the Internet. Some websites store information. Some ask us to fill in information which can be sold to other sites for commercial purposes. As the Internet gains more and more users the temptation for criminals to gain our private information becomes greater. Hackers can hide their true location when engaging in illegal activities online, so the likelihood of their being brought to justice is low. Whenever people post something online, it becomes almost impossible to erase, and with the proliferation of social networks posting personal information online is becoming second nature, this is a dangerous precedent. Take for example the posting of our locations online via geotagging, this for many is an action which doesn‟t take much consideration, however, to demonstrate the danger of this designer Barry Borsoom setup the website PleaseRobMe.com which would grab geocaching data and tell people when a person‟s house was potentially empty.[1] With the aid of the Internet then, we are symbolically sleepwalking into a big brother style existence, in an information age all data about ourselves is an important asset and one which needs defending. The infringement and degradation of our privacy as a side-result of the Internet should be of great concern, and it is potentially one of the most detrimental effects the Internet could have on society.
COUNTERPOINT Privacy online is a big concern, but an educated citizen can navigate the Internet in a safe and sensible manner with minimal privacy issues, although as with being offline a the threat of crime can never be entirely eliminated. When we go online no-one forces the user to share private information, it is volunteered by the user in exchange for a free service, it is often a small price to pay for the services that
can be received in return, such as free e-mail or free webspace. Of course privacy can be infringed in other ways, by unlawful access to personal files for example, but if protection such as firewalls are setup and users are careful about what they download privacy online can be easily maintained. It is misleading to say we are sleeping walking into a big brother existence, it gives in impression that the effect the Internet is having on society is conspiratorial, this is clearly not the case, people like the way the Internet can bring people all over the world together. Privacy is no more of a problem online than privacy is in the offline world, the issue is being overstated by the proposition.
The Internet has allowed a large amount of criminal, offensive and discriminatory information to be easily accessed.
POINT The ability for anyone to be able to publish anything online without barriers resulted in a large amount of information which could not only be incorrect but could also be criminal, offensive or discriminatory if it were available to the general public. This sort of information would not usually be widely published via offline channels, but with the advent of the Internet it is very easily accessible by anyone like never before, and this is a dangerous president. A cavalcade of propaganda from extremist groups such as religious zealots or Neo-Nazis for example can be accessed by anyone around the world. This is dangerous as vulnerable people could easily be taken in and exploited if the discovered this material. It is quite often found that „lone-wolf‟ terrorists, for example, have gotten their information and inspiration from the Internet. Garry Reid, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Combating Terrorism in the USA states that “Enabled by 21st-century technology, extremists have optimized the use of Internet chat rooms, Web sites and e-mail chains to spread their virulent messages and reach a global audience of potential recruits” .[1] But it is not only terrorists who are utilizing the Internet at a detriment to society. Various reports have linked a sharp rise in paedophilia with the growth of the Interne t[2] as it is an easy and often anonymous way to share such material with the world. The ability for anyone to publish anything online could clearly do considerable harm to society, which would have otherwise been much less prevalent and easier to control and regulate.
COUNTERPOINT
Freedom of information should mean freedom of all types of information, even if it is extreme propaganda from fringe groups such as neo-Nazis or Al-Qaeda. The public must be trusted to be able to make its own decisions on the value of such texts. What is great about the Internet is that points of view that would not necessarily get much publicity in traditional media can be aired and discussed online, from serious issues such as capital punishment to less serious ones like aliens. Of course one of the downfalls of such freedom is that illegal content such as child pornography can be made available in a way which it could not have before, but highlighting this issue is not entirely fair as it is greatly outweighed by the information available online that is perfectly fine and legal. This does not of course excuse the publication of such images. It is, however, a slight misnomer to suggest that the Internet is entirely free from the restraints of law. In issues of legality, governments can take action: they can either trace the origin of the images or force web space providers and ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to take down the content. On the whole, having ready access to such a large amount of information, and being able to freely add and discuss it, is beneficial to society, because it is both liberating and educational.
POINTS AGAINST
The Internet has increased economic and creative prosperity in a leveled way
POINT The Internet has brought greater prosperity, allowing not only established business more distribution channels over a wider geographical area but it has also allowed individuals through e-bay, for example, and small independent businesses to flourish. This has brought a lot more choice to ordinary people, and also driven down prices as people find it easier to compare different companies‟ products. The main advantage to small businesses is that they can cheaply set up online and find a global market for their goods and services. By making it easier to work anywhere with an Internet connection, the internet has also allowed many more people to work from home and to share projects with co-workers across the whole world which has allowed for greater economic efficiencies.
The Internet has also provided a cheap and wide-reaching platform for independent creative people to share and distribute their work. This is done via self-promotion similar to small business, in the form of digital portfolios and self-hosted blogs as well as sharing content more generally, take for example the vast array of independent movies gets regularly posted to video-hosting websites such as Vimeo. The Internet has given anyone creative equal footing by which to compete as everyone has the potential to reach the same global audience.
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COUNTERPOINT The Internet has certainly allowed many new small businesses and independent creative people to win international exposure at a low price. However, the Internet is, on the whole, dominated by big companies taking most of the business while smaller organizations struggle. The Internet has in fact damaged independents more than it has helped, as offline shops struggle to compete with the financial savings of operating entirely online. This is also true for art and other creative pursuits, because independent offline art projects are being harmed by the convenience of simply posting work online digitally. The economic benefits being spoken of do exist, but they favor the already powerful conglomerates over independents, as those conglomerates can use their vast income base to dominate. It is especially bad when these big companies migrate online, because they shred important jobs, to the detriment of society. The lowered barrier to entry means that anyone can setup business online, but on the whole the majority will struggle to survive and only a rare few will flourish.
The Internet helps to bring communities and the world closer together.
POINT With the ability for anybody to easily and quickly share rich information online, via a whole host of tools, the Internet serves bring people together. Firstly take for example social networks. Friends can remain connected to each other when miles apart. People can maintain and even create friendships without the barrier of geography. Additionally, social networks have a capacity to distribute news in a timely and targeted manner, directed at the people whom it mostly concerns, that is far greater than that of traditional media cannot compete. Secondly there are many instances of hyper-local news communities
springing up online in which people can truly engage in their community, and help improve it. This model can and is extended to bigger areas, helping to engage society for its greater good. For example Fillthathole.org.uk, provides a nationwide portal for U.K. citizens to report road potholes. Thirdly the Internet brings the world together by not only encouraging direct communication with people from other countries, but also by being able to share and distribute information in a way which traditional forms of communication could not do.
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COUNTERPOINT This image of the Internet drawing people being closer together is simply an illusion. Sitting in front of computers rather than getting out in the world in fact isolates people from one another. Some academics argue that narcissism is the glue that keeps social networks together .[1] If people didn‟t believe that their views were important and needed to be heard, then social networks would be unable to function. Social networks encourage people to express what they are doing rather than reading what others have to say. If people want to feel integrated into their communities, they should get out and about and do something active for it. Complaining about things online will not result in direct action solving the problem. Although it is true that people all over the world are now theoretically able to communicate with one another more easily, that is not how the Internet is actually used most of the time. Many Internet users either read digitized versions of traditional information sources, and when they are on social networking sites, they engage most often with real-life friends, with whom they could easily spend face-to-face time. Language is the other major barrier to worldwide integration. While there are translation tools online, most people online will stick to communicating in their native language, and this is particularly true of English speakers. The idea that the Internet is bringing new people together is on the whole a myth.
A l l the Yes p o i n t s 1. The internet has become a major source of information for many people. However, online information ... 2. Everyone’s privacy is greatly harmed by the internet. We can quickly see what politicians and celeb... 3. You can choose any identity you want when you are online. Many people hide behind profiles they hav... 4. Many people are just addicted to the internet. They can’t stop browsing, they are hooked on gaming ... 5. Since the nineties, instant messaging and emailing has been used to extract passwords, bank account ... 6. The internet has allowed big companies to capture a lot of business online while smaller, local comp... A l l t h e No p o i n t s
Internet, brings more harm than good Yes becaus e...
The internet has become a major source of information for many people. However, online information ... The internet has become a major source of information for many people. However, online information has usually not gone through the same checks as newspaper articles or books. There is a higher risk that some of the facts or quotations from a particular source in an article are false. Whereas newspapers might lose customers if people find out they gave been ‘selling lies’, a blog can be easily deleted. If people base their opinions on information they find online, they could well be basing their opinion on false facts. Since the internet gives equal space to material of greatly varying quality, this is a serious risk.
No b ecause... The internet gives millions of people access to information they would not otherwise have had, which is a huge benefit. And people who read the news online are not that easy to fool. Especially when you spend a lot of time online, you can tell bloggers who just want to shout from bloggers who carefully refer to their sources. The type of people this argument worries about are not the type of people that read high quality newspapers in the first place, they would read the trashy ones. The problem of bad information and news making is not unique to the internet; there are lots of trashy magazines as well. We learn in schools to double-check our sources and not believe everything we read, and we can apply that skill whilst surfing the internet.
Internet, brings more harm than good Yes becaus e...
Everyone’s privacy is greatly harmed by the internet. We can quickly see what politicians and celeb... Everyone’s privacy is greatly harmed by the internet. We can quickly see what politicians and celebrities are doing when the paparazzi posts news pictures online, but people can also see what we’ve been doing. Some sites store information. Some ask us to fill in information which can be sold to other sites for commercial purposes. Once we post something online, it is almost impossible to erase it from the net. For example, if I break up with a person, they can take revenge and post embarrassing photos of me online. There have been numerous court cases where a woman demanded that her ex remove some privately taken photos from a dating site, so that she would be left alone. Unfortunately, the law cannot protect your right to privacy in this area.
No b ecause... You are the first and most important person to protect your own privacy. Don’t fill in private information, if you don’t want people to know about it. There are laws protecting you from websites that just sell on your information, but if you give personal information out without being sure that it will be properly used you only have yourself to blame.
Internet, brings more harm than good Yes becaus e...
You can choose any identity you want when you are online. Many people hide behind profiles they hav... You can choose any identity you want when you are online. Many people hide behind profiles they have made up. They start making nasty remarks on public forums or chat rooms. They would never have normally said these things, but because they can hide behind an identity they start upsetting and hurting others. Even though other people can try to stop them from this behaviour, their warnings are not as effective as a warning from someone you know very well, like a friend, a parent or a teacher. The internet’s anonymity allows them to show sides of themselves that, for good reasons, they normally wouldn’t have shown. This increases the risk that, because they get away with it online, they show similar behaviour in their real life. This harms everyone.
No b ecause... Against this group of people who misbehave online is a group of people who have finally found individuals with similar mindsets. Not everyone likes the same things and the more unusual your preferences, the harder it will be to find friends. The internet has finally given many people a place where they can be themselves, and where they can meet likeminded people. It is a great relief for them that they do not have to fear being discovered by people they know.\ You cannot let a small group of badly behaved people ruin the freedom of many others. We should work on creating better policies to deal with rude people, but we should not go back to the old situation where people who are different in some way end up feeling isolated and lonely.\
Internet, brings more harm than good Many people are just addicted to the internet. They can’t stop browsing, they are hooked on gaming ... Yes becaus e... Many people are just addicted to the internet. They can’t stop browsing, they are hooked on gaming and they spend too much time indoors. Instead of going out for a walk or play outside, they sit behind their computers for hours. A sad consequence of the addiction is that they are so used to high speed information by just clicking on the next link that they can no longer appreciate a good book, or a nice conversation with a friend. By failing to take exercise they grow fat and unhealthy. Their family life suffers and their only relationships are online – they can’t cope in the real world.
No b ecause... There is nothing wrong with sitting indoors. It’s better to sit indo ors and actively research and surf online than to sit in front of a television and passively take in what the TV company decided you should watch. 20 years ago people used to worry kids spent too much time inside watching TV, but viewing hours have dropped as people choose to use the internet instead. There are lots of educational games and news sites we can browse around and learn from in much more effective way than television could ever provide. Furthermore, many people keep up their social contacts online. Saying they cannot appreciate a nice conversation, or a good book is just a wild claim.
Internet, brings more harm than good Yes becaus e...
Since the nineties, instant messaging and emailing has been used to extract passwords, bank account ... Since the nineties, instant messaging and emailing has been used to extract passwords, bank account details or credit card numbers. This phenomenon is called phishing. A phisher uses professional-looking websites and profiles, and tens of thousands of people have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to phishers. If we could better control who contacts us, this would not have happened on such a large scale.
No b ecause... It is unfortunate that people who are willing to help have been abused by others. However, there have been many campaigns that raise awareness about phishing. Governments and banks have provided guidelines about how to recognize phishers. We should firmly deal with the crime of phishing, but not forget how much easier our life has become now that we can do our financial business online and via bank cards.
Internet, brings more harm than good Yes becaus e...
The internet has allowed big companies to capture a lot of business online while smaller, local comp... The internet has allowed big companies to capture a lot of business online while smaller, local companies have lost out. And because the internet makes it easier to get work done abroad, jobs have left many western countries for low-wage countries abroad.
No b ecause... The internet has brought greater prosperity, allowing lots of different businesses to set up online. This has brought a lot more choice to ordinary people, and also driven down prices as people find it easier to compare different companies products. Small businesses can cheaply set up online and find a market for their goods and services. And by making it easier to work anywhere with an internet connection, it has allowed many more people to work from home and to share out projects with co-workers over the whole world.
Debates > Internet, brings more harm than good