It’s sad that the news tends to give the Internet a bum rap. Just look at how many shows are dedicated to how shitty things are, and how dangerous the Internet is.
Want an example? Check out “To Catch a Predator“. The show is dedicated to finding online predators. They do this by getting a girl to pretend she’s a 14 year old girl in a chat room, and then inviting the guy over to have sex.
First of all, I want to know how the producer’s know which chat rooms to go to, but more importantly it seems that the girls are really the ones leading the men to the idea of sex. In fact a number of cases had to be dropped since the men had been illegally arrested.
All is not lost though, because I know truthfully, that a majority of Internet users are good people. The media works hard to fear monger, while bloggers continually fight to show truth.
Our ability to come together, shows the possibility for good.
Fund Raising:
The Internet has brought the world closer together, letting us feel each other’s joys and pains. We have begun to connect with those less fortunate than ourselves, and felt a pull to help those in need. Online fund raising has given us an easy way to donate to charities to better the world around us.
Creativity:
Collaboration is the word to best describe the Internet, and based on this idea we’ve seen a growth in creativity. People work together, taking digital art to a new level.
Flickr has shown us that photography can wow and awe. We learn from seeing, and inspiration is born from others.
DeviantArt brings us the best of graphic design, and the ability to use what we like and build upon what has already been made.
YouTube makes us all a star; giving us a community where we can share whatever we want. We come together, and see life through the eyes of another.
Truth:
I said it before, that the Internet has brought together truth. Where major media outlets refuse to take the time to check their sources, bloggers have no qualms fact checking everything.
The latest example of this is the latest Iran Missile Photograph. When CNN and other major media outlets ran a story about a photograph from Iran of a missile launch, it was a blogger that noticed the the picture had been altered. In the end, the photoshop became apparent, and media outlets had egg on their face.
Once again, bloggers had shown, that their emphasis on truth and their need to maintain a reputation had lead to better news reporting.
Social Media:
“Two heads are better than one” - the phrase that epitomizes community and working together. Then what happens if instead of two heads, we have the millions? Welcome to the idea of Social Media. Where the Internet is vast, these sites make it easier to find what’s best. Working together, we find what’s important.
Digg is the premier social media site. With millions of users daily, news is filtered quickly.
Stumbleupon finds the hidden gems on the Internet. People can discover and vote on what they like as they stumble through different topics of their choice.
The Experiment:
Which leads to the experiment. Take a moment and vote for this article, and highlight the good on the Internet, and share it with others.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Tammy 07.24.08 at 3:37 pm
To catch a predator was not scare mongering,it was truth,hard facts!
The producers knew where to look because countless families have been reporting social networking sites after finding that their children have been groomed on them.
If the likes of teenspot and bebo were more reactive when they received complaints half the problems could be easily resolved,however they choose to turn a blind eye to online predators using their sites as a paedos playground.
Samir Balwani 07.24.08 at 4:50 pm
Delicious | Digg | StumbleUpon | Technorati | TwitterTammy I agree with you that sites like Teenspot and Bebo need to be more receptive to child predators. Online predators is a touchy subject, and one I think is being exploited by shows like “To Catch a Predator”. I would have no problem with it, if the show followed the letter of the law and find online predators instead of entrap them. By breaking the law, they themselves are no better than the predators they hope to catch.