An Element of Parenting: Young Children and Home Computers

Skimming the Surface

As a teacher of young children, I see many times in a week just how complex children are. Every day I work with them, I understand a sliver more about how they work and a ton more about how much I really don't know about they work. So it should come as no surprise that trying to decipher the effects of something as vast and complex as the Internet and technology in general on something as complicated and extraordinary as a child and all children in general would be next to impossible.

All children are different. Each child has his or her own view point, his or her own understanding of the world and will interact with technology in a different way. Many researchers have seen, for example, that males are more likely to be interested in video games while more females are more likely to be interested in social networking sites. Furthermore – childhood is a large time period. The effect of a computer in the home is substantially different on a five year old than it is on a twelve year old, yet both could viably be considered part of “childhood”.

The purpose of this article is to give a broad overview of some of the issues parents of young school-aged children face in a culture where computers and the Internet are inescapable elements of society.


Academic Influence

Computers are often heralded as the ultimate educational resource. Cursive writing is no longer taught in all schools, and many teachers require that all assignments be typed up instead of being submitted in handwriting. Furthermore, the computer gives the user access to the Internet, a wealth of information for students to access as well as a portal for other educational resources. Having a computer in the home can increase academic success in students who use them.

Computers can extend classroom work to the home and reinforce concepts taught at school in the home. Many schools have websites where students can access homework, schedules and resources for their schoolwork. Furthermore, computers encourage independent learning because students work independently at a machine. Having a home computer can also encourage problem solving and technological adaptability skills which are necessary as children grow up and enter a workforce that becomes more and more technology saturated every year. Moreover, if a child is confused about school work, the computer provides excellent opportunities to communicated with teachers and peers to get help.

Clearly, technology can offer some wonderful gains to a child's academic development, but the truth of the matter is that having a computer in the home is not enough to increase a student's performance in school. A study done in Romania showed that technology in the home is used more often for gaming and social networking than it is used for school, and students with access to a computer actually showed a decline in academic progress in reading and math.


Social Influence

While computers were originally analyzed for their effect of the academic progress of young children, the effects on a child's social development is equally important. The long term effects of home computers on social skills are still unknown largely because the technology is still so young. Many have theorized, however about whether the effect is positive or negative. Most people would agree that breaking up with a partner by using a text message or Facebook message is not appropriate, but this example is a surprisingly common occurrence amongst teens who never learned proper web etiquette as a child.

Those who claim that home computers are negative for social development point out the fact that many children using computers use them in solitude away from face to face contact with their peers.

Texting, email and posting messages are extremely different than regular face to face to contact and some worry that children who spend too much time with a machine and not enough with other children will develop poor social skills and an inability to communicate with others effectively. Children learn essential skills such as empathy and sympathy through imaginative play but computers do not offer opportunities to engage in activities such as pretend.

Furthermore, many children are changing their definition of friend. Many children have hundreds of friends on social networking sites and have trouble distinguishing the difference between their acquaintances online and their true friends with faces, names and personalities. What kind of person will a child grow up to be if they have only shallow relationships and more of them? Many argue that a lack of deep and meaningful relationships lead to adults incapable of deep and meaningful relationships.

In contrast, some argue that home computers are beneficial for developing social skills in young children. For example, email and social networking sites help children to stay in contact with friends and family that are not close enough to visit frequently. These mediums are also text based, meaning that children have to learn to read and compose sentences in order to use them. Literacy is a key component to communication and communication is the foundation of social skills.

Beyond strictly developing or not developing, the impact of a home computer on a child's social life can be far more varied than simply how much contact a child has with other real people. A growing problem among school children is cyber bullying. Cyber bullies take verbal and social bullying (i.e. exclusion, threats, insults, humiliation, etc...) online. Receiving violent threats or hurtful insults online is becoming a serious problem in schools, since many children are not learning how to be responsible online citizens. Some children who are online bullies are much nicer in person than they are online (Though many are not). Many children who take part in these activities say that they feel more comfortable being mean online because it is impersonal.



Physical Influence

Another key aspect of child development is their physical body. As an adult, we are not growing and changing in the same way that children are. The first decade shapes the way a child's body is able to function for the rest of their life and sitting in front of a computer for too long can cause physical as well as social and academic damage.

The largest physical problem related to home computers is obesity. Children who are sedentary using a computer too long are not as active and can develop weight problems related to a lack of exercise. Obviously having a computer in the home is not the only factor in determining whether or not a child is active overall, but it is also very evident that children who focus more on technology than activity are more prone to obesity and the problems associated with it.

Other physical problems that have been associated with children using technology too frequently are vision difficulty, frequent and painful headaches, difficulty sleeping, attention deficit disorder and repetitive motion strain. Vision difficulty and headaches are often caused by sitting too close to the screen or by staring at it too long. Since adult eyes are developed, the eyes will tire after repetitive use of a computer screen, but a child's eyes are still developing and too much screen time can deter crucial progress in the development of the eyes and proper vision. Difficulty sleeping and attention deficit disorder arise from over-stimulation.

Lastly, the development of important skeletal and muscular tissue can be delayed by sitting too long in front of the computer or television. This growth is extremely important in a child's development, as it can never be made up for. A child whose body is damaged by sitting for hours at a time can never be repaired because it was never able to grow in the way that it was meant to.


Tips for Parents

The computer has benefits and problems along a broad range of topics. The only way for children to receive the positive elements of computers and not the negative ones, parents have to be active and engaged in how their child grows up with technology. By discussing expectations, setting and following rules and supervising online behaviour, parents can foster technologically responsible adults.

1. Encourage your children not to go online without having a plan. Many people make the mistake of going online without actually needing anything. When your child uses the Internet, make sure that they know what they are looking for and where they can find it. Having a plan reduces time spent in front of the screen and teaches how to be responsible about using the Internet.

2. Give frequent reminders to do school work before gaming or social networking.

3. Talk about Internet safety. Remind them not to engage in discussions with anyone they do not know or to give out any personally identifying information. Talk about having responsible discussions with peers online, and emphasize that anything put online can be tracked and remembered.

4. Keep your home computer in a central location and do not put computers in bedrooms or offices where the user is isolated from the rest of the family while on it. Having the computer in a central location enforces the idea that computers do not have to be anti-social.

5. Limit the amount of time children spend on the computer. Many recommend limiting total recreational screen time (including monitors, televisions etc...) to an hour. If children need additional time in front of the screen for homework, make sure that they are using their time productively. Consider setting a limit on school computer time as well if it becomes too much for your child.

6. Encourage balanced time use – if you spend one hour a day on the computer, spend an hour of day playing outside as well.

7. Bookmark safe sites. Many sites featuring adult content have names based off of misspellings of safe sites.

8. Be a good role model. Abide by the rules and boundaries set by you and your family.

An Element of Unemployment: Facebook and the Hiring Process

Would you want your employer to see you like this?

Internet Reputation

When was the last time you checked your Googled your name? When was the last time you cleaned up your Facebook page? Many people don't think about their online reputation, or give much thought to how they socialize online. But information about us is more public, and more accessible than most people thought.

Social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have grown increasingly popular every year since their unveiling in 2004. Younger and younger students are using these sites to socialize with their friends and are posting more and more information about themselves. Many surveys show that most University students access a social networking site every day. While there are many debates surrounding these sites, one issue is of particular interest to my age bracket: employers using social networking sites to make hiring decisions.

A few years ago, attention was drawn to the recent development of employers using Facebook to scout out potential employees before deciding whether or not to give them an interview. At the time, this idea was new, and students didn't realize that their online profiles were preventing them from getting interviews despite stellar resumes and excellent marks. Beyond using Facebook as a tool for determining whether or not a candidate was worthy of being interviewed, social networking sites have also been grounds for firing or demoting employees as well.

Despite increasing awareness about the impact Internet reputation has on employment, whether or not it is ethical for employers to be using it at all is still a matter of debate.

Getting the Facts

According to a study done by Harris Interactive, 45% of employers use Facebook to learn about potential employees before hiring them. Why bother, though, with resumes and cover letters being required by every institution? Employers have come up with a few reasons why the practice is important and why it is they feel it is ethical for them to do so.

Resumes do not show character, both resumes and cover letters are carefully crafted works. As much effort goes into building a perfect resume as a final assignment. (In the case of minimum wage work, it often takes more effort to write the resume than it does to perform employment duties.) They are often carefully worded, and demonstrate highly factual data, leaving interpretation to the reader. But how a person behaves and whether or not they will work well with the team already employed is also extremely important. Facebook is a good indication of how a person acts socially.

Furthermore, people who have a bad attitude or who are negative bring down a team regardless of how much actual work they do. Many employees have been caught posting negative remarks about their boss or coworkers. Some employees were caught revealing sensitive information or corporate secrets. An employer who knows that a potential employee has a history of such infractions, they will most likely not be interested in interviewing that person, and Facebook makes finding this kind of information much easier than it was in the past.

Social networking sites can also help identify which candidates are being honest and which ones are not. While lying on a resume is never a good idea, Facebook makes it an even worse idea. With many people discussing their lives on networking sites, employers can easily see if a potential employee has either exaggerated or outright lied about their credentials.

Beyond discovering how an applicant will adjust to their duties, employers are also interested in using networking sites to expose behaviour they feel is inappropriate. 53% of rejected employees were rejected because they displayed provocative or inappropriate images or messages. 44% of employees were rejected because of either implied or explicit use of both legal and illegal substances. Information about employees is more accessible and employers are able to refuse applicants more easily based on how they acted in University as opposed to how they scored.


Unfair Screening

While employees feel that looking at Facebook and other social networking sites is essential in finding the right candidate for the job, many students felt that they were unfairly screened by this method. In one incident, a student with an exceptional resume and academic record was unable to find a job before many months before his co-op coordinator discovered the cause: his Facebook page. Since then, many have voiced an opinion against employers searching social sites for information about potential employees.

The business environment is a professional setting, so it is very common for a person to act differently in the office than they would at home. Most people do not drink or swear at the office but many people do so in the comfort of their own home. Facebook is often a reflection of how a person acts in their personal, not professional sphere, so it is unfair to judge an employee based on information learned from a Facebook page.

Furthermore, Facebook requires no verification for posted information. Since Facebook does not require any type of proof for information posted on their site, it is not always reliable. Not verifying posted data is very common among social sites, so an opinion based on a fake profile could be just as detrimental as hiring a candidate based on a fake resume. While it is possible to doctor one's online profile to look better, the question is: is it common enough for all Facebook profiles to be seen as untrustworthy?

Along similar lines, most networking sites do not require authentication for the accounts created on their sites. Anyone can create a page on Facebook. There are cats that have Facebook pages. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that an angry ex boyfriend or girfriend might create damaging Facebook or mySpace pages. Users do not have to be who they claim to be at all. I have some friends who maintain two Facebook pages, one with their real name which is dedicated to their professional life and a different one under a fake name which is dedicated to their personal life. As above, the question is still how common it is to create fake or damaging pages.

Moreover, some names are common, and have many profiles associated with them. Some names are uncommon but still have more than one profile under the same name. How can an employer be certain that the person they are looking at online is actually the person whose name is on the resume? Some people don't have online profiles, but someone else who shares their name does. Employers don't tell employees when they look at their Facebook page, so it is not even possible to tell if you have been unfairly denied an interview if your employer assumed something based on a profile that wasn't yours.

It is illegal to discriminate against potential employees, but an employer can use Facebook to research employees without telling them, so discrimination could become more prominent. Resumes are meant to give professional information only, because your age, gender or marital status don't matter. An employer who sees a young woman who just married may not want to hire her because they anticipate that she will need maternity leave. Or perhaps an employer may not want to hire a younger graduate because they perceive age to be an indicator of maturity. Either of these reasons are not reasons to deny a person a job, but Facebook enables employers to use them as such because they are not required to disclose why an applicant did not receive an interview.

Access Rights

Beyond the validity and usefulness of the information itself, is the issue of privacy and what information should be accessible to an employer. Some argue that Facebook and other social networking sites are for personal use only, and that other uses should not be permitted. If everyone had to censor their Facebook profiles, it would defeat the purpose of having a networking site. If people are creating fake personae for employers to see, it makes having a profile somewhat pointless.

From the employer's perspective, however, Facebook is public and any information posted on it is available to the public. Many networking sites have options to make some content on a profile private or viewable only to friends, so anything that is left in the open is fair to look at. Typing a potential employee's name into Google is also available to anyone with a keyboard and an Internet connection. Employers often do searches on potential employees to see what is linked to their name.

Despite many employers actively using Facebook to learn about their staff, some employers don't actually use social sites themselves, but rely on others to do it for them. In a few cases, an employee “snitched” on another employee, resulting in a layoff. Often these layoffs were for comments posted on walls or in status updates that were offensive to the company, a higher up or co-worker or was sensitive information. In this case, the employee is often viewing the private page of their peer, either because they were added as a friend or because they were looking over the person's shoulder. Should this type of behaviour be encouraged? Should an employee be found innocent of the what was accused but the employer finds other undesirable information, can they still be dismissed? There is nothing to prevent an employer from saying the reason is for improper use of Facebook, even if the real reason is different.

Furthermore, some employers may ask young employees who are in the same network as a potential employee to do a background check. There have been documented cases of a scenario where an employee agreed to perform a similar task because they were afraid of losing their own job.

How can you help yourself?

While it can be difficult to clean up your Internet reputation, there are some ways that you can clean up your online dirt. There are also some ideas that can help you preserve your privacy online and present a cleaner image to potential employers while retaining your freedom to express yourself personally.

Use your site's privacy settings

Check your social networking site for extra privacy and security settings. Set all but the most basic and public content to your private network of friends. Employers are more likely to see your public page than your private page. It is possible, however, for employers to gain access to private pages through your network of peers.

Remove old photographs and posts

If a post is older than a week or so, it is probably garbage. There is no good reason for people to be digging through wall posts from too far back. If you think you might need information in a post, save the page to your computer before removing it from the Internet. Don't store tons of photographs on your site. Remove pictures from your profile if they are older than a few months to a year.

Be extremely careful who you accept as a friend (And delete people you aren't actually friends with)

Do you actually talk to the girl who sits across the hall from you? Do you really like the guy from accounting who added you the other day but you don't really know? Would you spend time with your co-workers outside the office or invite them to your home? If the answer is no, think twice before adding them to your friends list. When you accept a friend, you are allowing them within your private sphere and giving them access to your information.

If you wouldn't normally talk to someone, don't see them often or haven't seen them in a long time, it may be time to delete them from your friends list. You never know when someone might decide to snoop your page years after you stopped being real friends.

Create a second Facebook profile

If you want your profile to look at its best for employers all the time, consider creating a profile with the sole purpose of attracting potential employers. Use your full name (so that employers won't get you confused with someone else) and showcase your skills, talents and experiences. Use your facebook page as an extended portfolio – complete with audio, video, photographs and written content. Be sure not to include details that should not be relevant in a job search such as birth date, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, or political views.

Create a second page under a pseudonym or a nickname for your personal circle. Be careful to choose a name that would not be associated with you to a potential employer. (i.e. don't choose “Bob Smith” as your nickname if “Robert Smith” is your real name.) Even though this is your personal page, it is still a good idea to follow the advice above and keep it at least somewhat clean.

The main point in this method is making your “employable” profile as accessible and obvious as possible. Using your full, correct name, having a properly identifying image and accurate information listed all contribute to your first profile being more effectively targeted. On your personal page, using a name that is not easy to find, enabling appropriate security settings and choosing your friends wisely go a long way to keeping your personal and professional online reputation separate and secure.

Delete your profile and start a fresh one

If your profile is really in desperate need of an overhaul, you may want to consider scrapping it completely and starting anew. This method ensures that you didn't miss any potentially discrediting information and that what you are presenting is the most up-to-date and accurate information about you there is. It also gives you a higher degree of control over what others can see since you are starting with nothing and building up instead of starting with a large volume of information and building down.

It is becoming increasingly common for University and College students to delete their social profiles just before they graduate in order to create new, work-friendly profiles for their transition into career life.

Google your name every few months (and before applying for a job)

Check what sites come up from searching your name and what they say about you. What kind of a person do you appear to be based on the search results? You may not be able to remove what other parties have posted about you but you can help to debunk myths about yourself by discussing them on your profile page. If someone else with the same name keeps coming up when you search your name you may want to include some text explaining which sites are about you and which ones aren't to avoid confusion employers may have.

Be careful what you post

The most common sense advice is to think about what you're posting when you are posting it. Can it be taken out of context and make you look bad? Would someone be hurt, upset or offended by something you wrote? Are all your pictures suitable for family viewing? If you wouldn't be comfortable with everyone seeing certain content, you may want to think twice before posting it. Everyone needs to let off steam when they've had a bad day, but tweeting all your friends about how you think your boss was a complete moron all day is probably not the best way to do it. A good rule of thumb is that if you wouldn't say it to a person's face, it's probably best left offline.



In Conclusion

Whether or not it is morally right for employers to look at the social profiles of applicants remains undecided. Regardless of the correctness, though, the fact remains that almost half of all employers are considering Facebook as a reliable source of information about job candidates. That means that as adults, we need to be more conscious of our online image and take care not to tarnish it. Like piracy, there are so many people doing it, that all we can do is make accommodations in our own lives to the best of our abilities.

To anyone who is currently applying for a job or who has recently received an interview, I wish you all the best. Good luck.

An Element of Piracy: The Pirate Party

Hidden Treasure

I hope that this blog is copied. I hope I get credit for writing it, but I hope that readers copy this blog and show it to others. I have been a game designer and writer for many years now. I am a published poet and have a sizable fan base for some of my publicly available niche fiction work. I also support piracy.

Why do I support piracy? Probably one of the biggest reasons is because artists are subject to a very financially structured social system. Just like historically abolished laws broke certain class distinctions to provide equal opportunities for everyone to succeed, piracy pushes to abolish the social structure that supports an elite few and excludes most who could otherwise have a chance to succeed. I have never tasted the sweet fruit that lengthy and expensive copyrights bring with them, but I do know that it is much more than any reasonable human being needs to live comfortably on. Popular artists and the corporations that support them make obscene amounts of money, money that could be more equally distributed amongst many more artists. People will continue to buy media that impresses them and for unique experiences like theater and concerts, but no one wants to pay unreasonable prices because popular artists like to live lavish lifestyles. Stage performers were threatened by movies, but the appeal of live shows has not died. Now movies are the ones being threatened – by the open sharing of art by the general public. The Internet allows anyone to be an artist, not just the ones that are paid truckloads of money by large corporations.

I also support the free exchange of information amongst all people. With the Internet so widely available, inaccessible information should be outdated. By having strong anti-piracy laws we not only deter educating our own people, but also sharing our knowledge with people from other countries. While I know that for some, that sounds like a good idea, but I believe that there can be no successful global society without free flowing factual information. If what I write can be of use to someone and make their life better, why would I not want them to have access to that knowledge? As I mentioned above, I would like credit for the work I do, and making some money would be nice, but I strongly believe in the importance of sharing what we know with each other.

Enter The Pirates

In 2006, an anti-copyright group established themselves within the United Kingdoms, calling themselves the Pirate Party. The group aims to reform copyright laws in order to shift the balance of artistic power from the already established few to the yet-to-be established many. Their main focus is on three particular aspects of computer culture that are currently prohibited by law:

1. Format Shifting: Allowing the purchaser of one media to change the format of that media. i.e. buying a CD and then changing the tracks into mp3 format.

2. Time Shifting: Allowing a user to record a publicly available broadcast to watch at a later date. i.e. recording a movie that was shown on TV and keep it to watch later.

3. File Sharing: Allowing users to share media in the privacy of their homes provided that media is not used for commercial use. i.e. downloading “copyrighted” torrents.

Beyond their central platform, they also advocate complete privacy and anonymity on the web, even going so far as to create a Pirate Party ISP that will offer privacy ensured browsing. They claim to not keep any logs of Internet use in order to ensure that any user's privacy is safeguarded. While this lack of a bread crumb trail may make certain jobs more difficult for law enforcement, the Pirate Party stands by their decision that users should be protected while surfing from the privacy of their own home.

The group's short history is actually quite inspiring, having acquired over a record number of new members in the first 24 hours of announcing themselves as a forming party. For a while they were a small party on the fringe of politics, but in 2009 they got their big break when The Pirate Bay's ISP was asked to shut down service to the site and its creators put on trial for copyright infringement. The press and hype surrounding the downloading site's disappointing and controversial disappearance sparked a flood of Pirate Party supporters, doubling their membership and earning the party two out of eighteen seats in Parliament.

Proposed Solutions

The Pirate Party has some interesting solutions to recommend should they be voted into power, but bloggers and other Internet community activists also have some interesting ideas for thwarting anti-piracy agendas. One blog that caught my eye suggested filming yourself singing Happy Birthday and posting it on Youtube since Happy Birthday is technically owned and copyrighted. The company that holds a copyright on Happy Birthday requests millions of dollars in order for their 7 second ditty to be heard in public and makes approximately $2 million a year for providing the service of wishing everyone a happy birthday.

For a less formal social reaction, the Happy Birthday idea, I feel, is actually quite good. It raises awareness about the issue, requires very little effort to participate and brings public attention to the matter at hand. Unfortunately, searching youtube did not turn up any results besides the original, so it seems that the idea hasn't really caught on. However, despite there being a distinct lack of “Happy Birthday” themed piracy messages, there are other interesting videos that address the subject.

The above video was posted in response to the trial of The Pirate Bay's founders. The case around The Pirate Bay generated a lot of media response and attracted the attention of the public to the issues surrounding copyright, freedom and privacy. In this high profile case, something that “almost everybody does” was called out in courts, and the public made their voices heard in the form of Internet criticism and votes for the Pirate Party.

Political Agenda

The original Pirate Party of the UK spells out its goals very clearly in terms of its Internet policies. The use of another person's intellectual property for profit will remain illegal, but sharing of art will be free for personal use. Copyright protection has been extended slowly but surely to over 70 years past the original creator's death. By shortening this time period to the original 14 years that were covered in the first draft of copyright law, the Pirate Party aims to stimulate all artists with commonly available media and ideas that can be used by anyone to create new art and new ideas. This law is particularly important when thinking of software when software functionality often builds off of other functionality, which can become a huge copyright mess very quickly.

Also included in the Pirate Policy ideology is the mandatory labeling of DRM and other sorts of efforts to block piracy. As stated in the Copyright and Patents section of their manifesto, “We believe the public needs to be protected from products that can be remotely turned off by the manufacturer, or products that 'phone home' and would therefore stop working if the manufacturer went bankrupt, or that are 'region coded'. We will therefore introduce a mandatory warning label on products that include DRM which will warn purchasers of the defects built into these products. ” The Pirate Party not only wants to legalize private downloading but encourage people to learn and create new products based on older ones. DRM and other anti-piracy systems on software inhibit the flow of information and slow down the flow of ideas because everyone has to find work arounds.

In the same category is Patent Law, which the Pirate Policy claims is currently being abused by corporations in order to make more money off of the same ideas. By raising the bar on patent law, more people have access to required resources and can create new products faster and more efficiently. Unfortunately, the line for when a patent should be issued and when it shouldn't is rather blurry, according to the public release of their mission the bar is The rule of thumb is that a patent is not valid if “it is obvious to anyone skilled in the art”. The Pirate Party intends to make that stricter, though they have not provided a solid bar of measure as of yet. Exemptions for the patent law will include academic research, study and non-commercial use.

Beyond copyrights and patents, the Pirate Party tackles other Internet and technology related social challenges such as safety, privacy, security and anonymity online. The crux of their battle lays in the prevalence of the Internet in today's society, but has very little to say on other platforms. Representatives say that it is hard to bring focus to their issues in political debates because many other party representatives skirt around the Internet and piracy issues. However, the fact that they do not tackle as many other social issues as other parties is a serious detriment to their credibility in the eyes of many.

Criticism

While the Pirate Party has certainly brought attention to the issue of online downloading, what actually constitutes copyright infringement and what is deserving of patents, the Pirate Party has received heavy criticism from everyone who profits off of those documents. Disney poured a lot of money into getting copyright times extended when Mickey Mouse cartoons are coming up for release into the public sphere even though Walt Disney himself is clearly not making any more profits from the cartoon icon (since he's dead). Clearly it is in someone's financial interests to keep Mickey Mouse out of the public sphere.

Some corporations have gone so far as to call the Pirate Party criminal for its avocation for freely available content. In particular the European Anti Piracy Association (AEPOC) urges governments to treat Pirate Party successes as red flags warning them of how widely spread digital copyright infringement really is. They ask for stricter piracy laws and regulations that will allow them to more tightly control the system, even as the Pirate Party believes that downloading will happen regardless. A recently passed law, making rules about downloading and piracy more stringent, saw a drop in Internet activity as soon as it passed, making AEPOC believe that it had won a minor victory. I personally believe (As the Pirate Party believes) that this drop in activity is only temporary and that piracy will likely flourish again in the not too distant future.

Many artists also take stances against piracy, though notably it is the artists who are backed by corporations that pay them enormous salaries that have issues with it. But even amongst artists, there is a divide. Michael Moore stated that he was pro piracy in an interview about his documentary “Psycho”. He says that he is just happy that people are seeing his films. Jack Black, on the other hand, released an advertisement targeted at youth as part of an anti-piracy campaign. Digital piracy has been an issue for longer than our recent history however, as evidenced by some older attempts to thwart it long before the arrival of the Pirate Party or pro-piracy groups.

On a More Personal Note

I believe that the difference between pro or anti piracy (where artists are concerned) seems to be in the motivation for making movies. When the motivation lies in the message of the film, or in the art itself, the artist tends to care more about the product and receiving recognition for that product. They care about people seeing it and enjoying it. Contrast that with artists who are good at what they do, but are doing it for the paycheck. Personally, I tend to feel that content produced because it is a passion for the producer is far superior than content that is just made to sell. Take a look at most sequels – the original movie tends to have someone passionate behind it. When the movie is a success, it becomes a franchise, and not as passionate people step in to take over and use that franchise to make money. Most of the time the original is way better than the sequel.

As an artist myself, I write because I love to write, I create art because I love to create art. I am paid for some of my art (not all, but enough) and I understand the idea of compensation for my time, but the fact is, even if I was not paid for my creations, I would still create, because that's what I love – creating. And I know that I am not alone. There are many artists who feel the same way as I do and there are many people willing to support them for a reasonable price. Take a look at Web Series like The Guild, or Cinnemassacre, these sites were started up by artists who are passionate about what they do. They started making money from donations and people paid. Why is that? Because people do want to support people that entertain them, they just want to pay a reasonable amount for that entertainment. They want to pay for the content that they watch – not for an actor's private indoor pool or the 1 000 000^th outfit for an actress's chihuahua.

Beyond the scope of entertainment, however, there is the huge issue of information availability. Many scholastic works such as textbooks are also commonly downloaded. Companies that print academic information also claim damages from piracy. The blockage of factual information and studies is even more dangerous than blocking people from downloading a movie. As we move towards a more united global climate, we will need to embrace the free sharing of information on a grand scale otherwise as a populace we will be unable to grow and change. We have a unique ability to communicate with people from all over the world now, and to share our knowledge with people we never dreamed possible not too long ago. We can use our technologies to spread information to people who need it and instead we have chosen to block information exchange with copyright infringement and anti-piracy laws.

Many people seem to have similar opinions of piracy since The Pirate Party has started up in many countries in the world, and they already have a seat in Germany. Unfortunately, they did not receive any seats in Sweden, where, to my knowledge, they most recently finished running, but the movement has reached many places around the world. Pirate Parties International formed to unite pro-piracy movements from different countries. While Canada and the United States are not officially registered with Pirate Parties International, we do have a Pirate Party in both countries, though the Canadian Pirate Party seems to be more active and growing faster than its American counterpart. While they still remain fairly small, they are gaining momentum. In particular the Pirate Party's ability to attract today's technically knowledgeable youth who are notorious for not voting makes them harder to dismiss.

Read more on...

The Pirate ISP

• Swedish Pirate Party to Launch Pirate ISP
  

The Pirate Bay Trial

• Wikipedia's Article on The Pirate Bay Trial
• The Pirate Bay Trial - The Official Verdict: Guilty
• Pirate Bay Trial Turns Into a Circus
  

Pirate Party Election Results

• Sweden's Pirate Party Wins EU Seats
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An Element of Anonymity: Wikipedia

Obscured in Plain Sight

My name is not Nerdette. If you know my personality and a little bit about my life you could probably figure out who I am, but for anyone other than my direct circle of family, friends and peers, I retain my separation from the title Nerdette. No one out there who casually reads my blog can find my address or my phone number or my picture on Google Streetview and to be honest, I kind of like it that way. Anonymity certainly has its charms and benefits.

Advocates for anonymity cite examples of sensitive topics that the general population needs or wants to discuss but is either too embarassed to do so without anonymity or feels threatened by attaching his or her name to the comment. Topics like suicide or addiction are private matters. By allowing visitors to post messages anonymously, a safe space is created in which people seeking help can receive it with a minimal amount of discomfort. Furthermore, being anonymous on the Internet protects freedom of speech, something that we, as citizens of a free country, value very strongly. With anonymity comes the power to state any opinion regardless of its source, hurtfulness or truth.

Clearly, being able to speak freely on the Internet without being able to be traced has its benefits, but what happens when more and more trust is placed on anonymously posted information? This question is exactly what many critics of Wikipedia are asking, and the issue has been open for debate for many years. I found passionate blogs and heated articles from as early as 2002 and as late as a couple of months ago. With Wikipedia gaining more and more popularity as an initial go-to source for information, questions about its credability and reliability are at the forefront of many minds.

How Does Anonymity Hinder Wikipedia?

When visitors are looking for help or expressing an opinion, their credibility is not as important, but when that same visitor becomes a contributors, the stakes change. Now someone is relying on that person – trusting that nameless, faceless void to tell the truth about whatever it is they are writing. If in real life if an unknown individual came up to you on the street with a paper bag over their head and a name tag that said “127.0.0.1” and told you a random piece of information, the odds of you believing that individual are pretty slim (at least for me). Yet, that exact situation is duplicated on Wikipedia, where anyone who can locate the edit icon can make changes to the information on the page. Some members of the Internet community question the credibility of articles that can be changed by literally anyone. Surprisingly, Youtube does not have a whole lot of great material in the way of Wikipedia videos, but one video in particular stands out as a comedic commentary on some of the issues surrounding anonymity on the living encyclopedia.

Anonymity makes page vandalism and removal wars possible. There is nothing to hold people accountable for their actions except themselves. Companies can edit the pages of their opponents or themselves, political candidates can edit pages that portray them in a bad light and people can post damaging falsities without being punished.

The problem is further compounded by attempts to thwart such practices. On Wikipedia, when a contributor edits a page, there is no name recorded, but there is an IP address recorded for the computer from which the change was made. If particular addresses continually show up as posting problematic entries, the IP can be banned. The plan sounds good in theory, but in practice it doesn't always work out so well. When one member of a company abuses Wikipedia privileges, the whole company could be banned from contributing to the living encyclopedia. In one particular instance, an entire community was blocked from editing the site because of the postings of one man. Pages that are known for vandalism and abuse by contributors can be locked, preventing even well-meaning members of the Wikipedia community who choose to post anonymously from posting anything at all because the topic they chose happened to be spoiled by some of the less responsible citizens.

Posting without signing in is also not uncommon. Many users around the globe contribute without ever making an account, as shown by this by-the-hour representation of anonymous postings. You can see that anonymous posting is not something that only a few bored University students are doing in their “spare time”.

What is Can be Done to Address These Problems?

Anonymity continues to be a subject of debate amongst Wikipedians. Since the site was founded on the principles of anonymous contributions and good faith of the masses to report accurate information, the site's founder is reluctant to remove anonymity as an aspect of the site. A forum style article on Wikipedia discusses the issue and potential solutions. Bloggers on the Internet also contribute ideas and opinions on the issue of anonymity and membership. Some of the examples that are suggested are described below.

Mixing Registered and Unregistered Posting: Members with accounts agree to perform a certain amount of edits that they would normally do logged in anonymously. i.e. A registered member should make at least one good edit a week anonymously. The theory behind this method is that having registered and trusted members making anonymous contributions will raise the level of trust readers place in anonymous comments since there is a good chance that it originated from a registered user. This method is also thought to encourage anonymous users to post responsibly by setting a good example of anonymous editing.

Encourage Anonymity: Contributors are all encouraged to edit the site anonymously and membership is discouraged. In this less popular method, individuals are all held accountable to all their peers and there is not defined structure to editting pages. The idea is that everyone will feel more comfortable sharing their own knowledge and experience if they see that anonymous posting is encouraged. When people feel comfortable, they are more likely to want to preserve the good will of the site than destroy it.

Encourage Membership: Visitors who wish to edit the site are all required to make an account prior to doing so. At the other end of the spectrum, individuals are held accontable by other members in an identifiable way. Supporters of this view point out that making membership mandatory will deter many would-be vandals who don't want to be inconvenienced. It would also make blocking vandals easier and page content more reliable. People are not as likely to write poor quality articles if they have their name and reputation attached to their writing.

Tiered Membership: Members have a variety of different “account” levels. Casual editors are required to supply only a valid email address or other identifying piece of information to Wikipedia but are not required to disclose it to the rest of the community. More regular contributors have accounts that can be logged into with more information displayed for the community to see. Moderators and Administration have even higher privileges and more visibility.

Anonymity Tagging: Contributions made by anonymous users will be tagged as such so that anyone visiting the site can see which edits were made by trusted sources and which ones aren't. This method attempts to make anonymous posting less common by drawing attention to the volume of posts contributed by non-identified sources.

Limitted-Time Anonymity: Visitors may make edits anonymously for a period of one month, and then any edits afterward must be made with a logged in account. While the idea may sound like a good one, the problem becomes tracking who has posted for a month and who hasn't. People live in the same house, people use different computers and change IP addresses. This method's loopholes would make it extremely difficult to implement.

What is Wikipedia Doing?

The response to the situation by Wikipedia is a smart one. Instead of dealing with the issue of anonymity as a social issue (Whether or not people should be held responsible by a body of people or only themselves) the community has chosen to address the effect of anonymity instead. Anonymity deters from credibility, and it is precisely the ability to rely on Wikipedia's information, that the company has chosen to handle.

A new editing system is proposed to be implemented on many pages that have vandalism problems that Wikipedia hopes will curb the problem. The new editing system will save changes that anonymous users make separately from the rest of the page. Visitors wishing to comment or vote on the validity of potential changes can do so and only after review will the changes be saved to the page. Potential edits that have not been committed to the main body of information are visible only if a user chooses to review them, otherwise they are completely excluded from the article, preventing vandals from editing pages in inappropriate ways. While the service has not been implemented on any pages I have seen, there is a Wikipedia article available with the details of the proposed system outlined.

Header

While the proposed potential edit solution does not actually take a stand on whether or not anonymity should be allowed on the internet, it certainly would take preventative steps to protect Wikipedia's credibility. Personally, as a member of both the blogging community and some forum communities, I support membership.

For the most part, displaying a member name or handle is anonymous within the community. As I mentioned before, my name is not Nerdette, but that is the name that readers know me by. Identifying information is required to post, for sure, but that information is not available to the public. People disagreeing with my opinions cannot track me down or spam my email inbox with rude comments. I may not be truly anonymous, but I feel that I retain my personal identity enough that I am confident enough to write my true opinions.

Furthermore, membership does not require a lot of time, effort or even information to complete. Registration requires an email address, a password and a username (when your email is not your username). So why not do it? Membership simultaneously gives me credit for my work, and security in my personal life. Many places do not require my name or other identifying information like a phone number or home address.

Bringing the topic back to Wikipedia, I personally am of the opinion that Wikipedia made a good decision to address the effect and not the issue of anonymity. By creating safety nets for the information posted, they have allowed both supporters and critics of anonymity to come to a compromise in this particular instance.

P.S. I decided to edit Wikipedia anonymously, but was completely baffled by the fact that they chose to have their “edit” link at the top of the article and not the bottom. I realize that it is a small usability issue, but seriously...people read the article then edit not the other way around. The first time I clicked on the edit button, I was surprised to be greeted by completely unexpected content. The “edit” link makes more sense at the end of the article.

P.P.S. This article about German criminals who served their time in jail and were re-introduced into society demonstrates that everyone's value of anonymity is different, and that as a people we tend to place different values on the anonymity of different individuals.