Merging Teachnologies in the Superhighway

“[S]ocialist or radical democratic control of the media results in more freedom, more enlightenment, more rationality; capitalist or centralist control results in oppression, passivity, irrationality.” (537)
This quote was one of a few in this article that caught my eye. It is true, that if the government lets it’s people have freedom in their media, the people are better educated about things and become enlightened. If a government restricts what their people can learn through different forms of media, it makes the people less powerful and oppressed. Who has the right to restrict things any way? Are we not all equal people who have rights to see and learn things that are true? Even if things in the media are not necessarily true or “good” for us, who has the right to take that freedom away?

It was also mentioned that the FBI was insistent “on building surveillance mechanisms into the structure of the information superhighway.” (537) I do not agree with this one bit. Ok, well, maybe I agree a little for national security purposes, but it is not a far-fetched thought to think that the FBI will abuse this power. This type of surveillance reminds me of the book 1987 and the show Big Brother. Not natural in any way, shape or form and I personally do not believe in spying on others.

Lastly, it was also mentioned that there is a vast inequality among the users of the internet. It does not surprise me that the greatest amounts of users are white males, we learn in many classes that this is the dominant group in our society. Although this article says that the internet is relatively cheap, it takes skill and an educated mind to browse through the internet. Finding educated people in third world countries does not come easy and thus, this is why we have an internet inequality.