Internet... A world that connect a universe

Valeria Quintana – Stiven García

Internet through time has been considered beyond a system for storing information, a way to set people free in ourselves. In a beginning, it was supposed to be used with militaries purposes, to enable large distances communications for keeping people ready and prepared to any event, but it never did. However, Internet was used by first time in 1969 to communicate 3 universities in the United States, giving the next step into a different era with the development of new and never seen communications. Internet nowadays has become in part of our daily life, it has broken the barriers of the human wit, allowing us to communicate with the whole world throughout 40 years, and during that time, we have shared tons of ideas, which have built the society that we know today, so It will be totally wrong that few people, with a selfish thinking, take control and destroy all the work that we have done to build a fear society.

Currently, governments are trying to find new ways to govern and keep up the order in the society because of crime, violence and all the possible problems they could face; Corruption and avaricious as the worst enemy for humanity, has changed the perception that people used to have about governing. So they were forced to show people what they only want, hiding and depriving the real information to give a good conception of them for the society, and an effective way to do it, is through the communications, fundamentally Internet, that it has over 1854 million of daily users. However, it would be a violation of our rights, inasmuch as they would be limiting our capacity to think and express freely our ideas, in that way we would be subject to a system which would not have the participation of people, because of the opinion is censured.

Since Internet has been in our society, it has opened many doors for people worldwide, creating new opportunities for working, giving more chances to develop our world. A clear example of this, are all those companies that offer their services, products and help, through the Web, contributing and promoting everyday a better quality of life. Internet is not just a way to get jobs or some business; it is also a means which we can expand the possibilities to connect people around the world in one place, breaking the caps, going beyond of our limits. The regimen of each country expect to restrict and control all those connections that have allowed to people communicate, to supervise our behavior in the web, looking for “possible actions against the state”, going into our privacy, watching over us for some wrong conduct.

Another important issue is the privacy; this can be considered as people’s freedom, inasmuch as, through privacy people can express as themselves, without any kind of restriction, without being judged or criticized. For instance, “without privacy life would be hell. It would mean that you would be highly vulnerable to the control of others, lose your freedom which may lead to inhibition, tentativeness, may be less spontaneous, and you would be more likely to be manipulated”. There are many ways, which people is being fooled, and forced to live without a consistent privacy, because of we are part of a system where everyone needs to know what you do, to allow you permissions (licenses, offers, etc.), any kind of job, and even for buying something; if you don’t agree with them, you would be rejected. Furthermore, another common way to go into our privacy is through Internet, insomuch as, this is a massive media with million and millions of daily users, which has offered us unimaginable possibilities, both good and bad. We can find some danger while we are connected, since as we are exposed to people with malicious purposes, seeing that they can steal our valuable information, like web accounts, passwords, credit cards information, etc. any kind of material which can threaten our integrity. For that reason, it is very important to keep our information, because we will never know about what the other’s purposes are. In addition, disrespect of privacy is considered as a violation of the human rights, because that means do away with people’s freedom; so would you like the idea to be watched all time by entities or people to see what are you doing, exposed to many risks online?

Besides, today there are many corporations such as Microsoft, Facebook, Google and even mobiles companies that try to “hide” some important information for the customers in their super large products user agreements licenses, making people lazy to read it, skipping many important information. For example, when you install new software, or you when you create an email or social network account, before you would be able to use it, you need to agree the user’s policies contract, and if you do it unconsciously, you are committing to follow those statements whose purposes are both overprotect themselves as well as to allow them manipulate your information, but if you don’t agree, you can’t use their products, so you were forced to used it, surrendering your freedom.

Therefore, Internet has become our biggest mean of communication and expression; likewise, it has lead for malicious acts by governmental entities or a simple person that has his own interests or wants to sell the world a misleading information, or in the same way hide the true facts about things that happen around the world; in that way, we would be able to say that Internet censorship is one of the forms of impediment of free writing and thinking. That is why we are living in a foolish society, where most of the opinions are false.