My views and opinions and commentary
Free Speech
In a nutshell: I'm strongly in favor of free speech
Detailed:
On speech, and by speech I include many forms of expression, such as typing
on the internet, graphical pictures, publishing with ones own money, etc, I am oppossed to almost every restriction I have seen that attempts to limit
the freedom of speech. While I have several reasons for this view, one
reason for this view comes from the US Constitution (and yes, I know
that this does not apply to those who are outside of the US.)
The US constituion has the first amendment which states several freedoms all in
a row. While some people like to separate them, when I look at the amendment
as a whole, I see one overriding idea--that the freedom of expression is
and ought to be protected from intrusion of the government. Note what it
does not say. It does not say intrusion from individuals. As an
individual, I can hear one person speak, and speak out against what they say,
even saying that they should not be allowed to say such things (not that
I would do these things, but to give a hypothetical example.)
However, were I a government official (I'm not), I should not in any
way speak out that the person should not be saying what they are saying
in the capacity of a government official. It does not matter to me if
the speech is offensive, for the freedom of expression is to protect
unpopular
speech, not popular speech. That which is popular with the government
needs no protection from the government. Note also what I am not saying,
or admitting as permissable in my view. I do not hold that protection of
another group is just cause for the government to censure, for my principle
is broad and admits without exception quite deliberately. Indeed, when
I read the US Constitution, I see no talk of exceptions, only a broad
principle that seems to indicate that it should _never_ be infringed.
Also, as a corrolary, I do not hold that minors should be protected by
the limitation of speech. One should educate people, not insulate them.
Above all, it is not the place of the government to do any insulation
of a child from offensive speech, but the place of the child's
guardians.
There are several moral reasons why I do not hold infringement on free
speech to be acceptable. The most basic of these reasons comes from
my viewpoint that while some speech may be morally wrong, it is a far
greater moral wrong to forcibly stop such speech than to permit it.
To me, the most moral thing to do when presented with immoral speech is
to either ignore it completely (not giving it the dignity of a response),
or to oppose it with speech of one's own. That is the basic quick
and dirty moral response, but of course that leaves the more detailed
response that requires an appeal to moral philosophy.
An appeal to moral philosophy
Totally free speech such as the form which I advocate is justiefied by a
variety of moral codes. Kant's Categorical Imperative is but one
example. Another example is humanism, the idea that moral is defined as that
which benefits humans. In the long run, it is better for the
person to be allowed to speak than to be suppressed. People are very
resourceful when suppressed, and their ideas will make it out. If they
are suppressed, that lends a much greater air of legitimacy to even
some of the most outlandish notions.
One of the most famous, and in my view, best, defenses of free speech
was done by John Stuart Mills, On Liberty. Mills presents
several arguments in favor of free speech and also some of the
dilemmas that this policy inevitably brings. My answer to the general
dilemma is to not admit that crack or loophole to prevent the trickle from
becoming a flood. Well aware of the history of government regulation of
"freedoms", I see how even minor regulations that seem unrelated quickly can
turn into a very large level of restriction that bears no resemblance to the
original idea.
One potential problem that some have mentioned to me with my ideal of
speech being free is that it is inflexible, and that in the future,
my ideal may be more harmful than good, and indeed, speech may be something
quite deadly, if free. I would respond to those by pointing out that
such a view is already the case, and has been for years, indeed
centuries. People can destroy lives with a few well spoken words.
Today, one can with words describe devices that will literally kill
millions, either the manufacture method for a nuclear device, or a
biological or chemical weapon. Despite these threats, my view
remains the same. If any principle is worth holding to an extreme,
then it must be worth holding even under potentially great consequences.
Also, suppressing the speech will not eliminate it, merely slow it down.
Despite the great secrecy on nuclear technology, the former Soviet
Union obtained the secret only a few years after the US did. Several
other key countries obtained the technology not much later. A similar
principle holds true with other mass weapons. Indeed, the day
where words can kill has been upon us for decades now.
The World Wide Web
In the past several years, I have watched the World Wide Web grow up
through the explosion of popularaity that it now enjoys. I wrote the
first draft of my home pages when HTML 2.0 was not even official yet,
hence some of the design decisions that have gone into my home page.
At the time I wrote my page, they were not options. As I would access
my home pages from other states, or over slower network connections, I
quickly learned the value of lynx a popular text based WWW
browser. I also learned that contrary to the opinions published about
what browsers are used by how many people, many people continue to
access the WWW over slow or text only links. But there is nothing
about the web that really requires more than a text link. People who
think differently should try it for a day or two. While some pages
are made to require one web browser or another, many pages are quite
comfortable and nice with any browser, even lynx. After all, one
doesn't go to a home page for the side pictures or the snazzyness, one
goes there for the content. Businesses have to have snazzy home pages
frequently. They are trying to attract a customer for some real
money. However, they also have to remember that some customers have
just a vt-100 sitting on their desk and their potential customer is
browsing the web via lynx. So what some companies have done is to
create two versions of their page, one friendly for slower or
non-graphical clients, the other for high speed pretty clients. This
policy is to be comended, for then you play to both audiences.
But there is something else going on in the world of the WWW today.
When the web came out, and when it was upgraded to HTML 2.0, there was
one standard. Every client could understand the same codes to create
the home pages. A few companies have tried very hard to destroy this
open client standard by throwing in bells and whistles -- the ability
to handle HTML codes or formatting commands that are not necessary,
yet are not understood by other browsers. Some clients went as far
as to implement a proposed HTML command differently than others
implemented it, which of course meant that you had to pick and choose
which way to program. Since people wanted it to be viewable by the
most people, they naturally would chose the more popular browser.
This however resulted in more business for the company in question.
This leads me to my conclusion about web pages. Despite all the
popularity of Netscape "Enhancements", they are not standard. Even
people with Netscape cannot take advantage of many of the Netscape
additions to HTML because they are using an older version of Netscape
than the latest. Many people still use Netscape version 1, while the
latest version is required for some of the nifty new features like
Java support, frames, etc. Also, one does not gain any fundamental
new features that are really needed to display a page correctly.
Therefore, I feel that a home page on the web should always use only
standard HTML codes that as many browsers as possible can understand.
Further, all pages should be friendly to lynx as the de facto standard
for text based browsers. My pages reflect this philosophy by
emphasizing content over appearance.
Privacy on the Internet
It used to be the case that the way to keep your privacy was to never
respond to anything, not seek out to get yourself advertised. Today,
in order to obtain privacy on the internet, the opposite is true. By
default, your name will be recorded in a myriad of places that you
don't even know about unless you act to stop its spread. Your real
name and real life address may be on the web without your knowledge,
all because you didn't go to the effort to stop it.
What does it matter? Why should we care about keeping our privacy on
the internet? Well, quite frankly, it's up to the individual. Some
people have been stalked in their past, so want to avoid that, others
make controversial statements, or have offended people with perfectly
legal expression, yet have reason to suspect they might be harassed if
their real life address was known. Whatever the reason, many
individuals want privacy. My personal resason is that I open my mouth
a lot. As long as it is on the internet only, it is contained within
a little bubble. I can turn off the computer and walk away, leaving
the controversy behind. Even if they say mean things about me behind
my back, if I'm not online, I don't care, I don't see it, it doesn't
matter. However, if they know my name, or address, or worse, my
telephone number, then they can do things to me to harass me. It
turns out to be simple to cancel another person's phone service, a
trivial, if annoying thing. Harassing phone calls in the night and
other common forms of harassment that are hard to avoid. Anonymity
protects you more than it protects the bad guys. You may be wondering
why I say that. What makes me think that anonymity is by and large a
good thing? Simple numbers suffice. Most people are not bad, and
very few would actually do mean things. But if they are prevented
from doing some of these things by anonymity, then they can't act as
much. One person might bother many people, so even if they only
bother ten people, that means that for every person who is bothered by
someone cloaked by anonymity, there is still several people who are
protected from this hassle.
Some examples from recent news that deal with privacy focus on efforts to
create national databases for various purposes. One example includes
the proposed national medical records database. Under the proposal, if
one is treated for some disorder, it is on your record, and any insurance
company, any doctor's office, or dentist's office, could obtain that record.
On one hand, such a lack of privacy is useful. If one is unconcious and
unable to respond, your complete medical history could be quickly obtained
and any dangerous allergies could be known about before treatment. Similarly,
doctors would have an easier time researching your condition. However,
there are many scary aspects as well. It would encourage greater
health care discrimination as companies would be more able to identify
high risk people based on what treatments they have received throughout
their entire life. The possibility for abuse becomes real if you deal
with a doctor who has a personal grudge, they could enter comments into
your permanent record that would adversely affect your ability to get
affordable and good health care in the future. In short, the individual
loses control over their future and life in that area.
One thing to keep in mind is that the anonymity comes in levels. It
may be not telling anyone your age, even if asked. That is a good
form of anonymity. You can't harm anyone, or hide who you are through
that information. Instead, all you are doing is forcing people to
judge you by one less preconception--your age. Similarly, gender,
where you live (even in broad terms), physical attributes, your
accent, etc. are all frequently used to form preconceptions. On the
internet, we are forced to judge only by what is typed, not by things
the person cannot help. In this sense, the Internet gives us the best
chance to fairly evaluate any person on the net ever. It's better
than even letters, because you can meet new people, and hide poor
handwriting because of an injury, or some other legitimate reason.
Anonymity protects, but more importantly, it forces us to judge by
what they actually do, not by things that cannot be helped.