References

Referencing:

1.      Bernardi, Daniel, 2002. "Cyborgs in Cyberspace". New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press

2.      Maria Luisa Tucker, 2007. A Neo-Nazi Field Trip to the Met [online] Available at: http://www.villagevoice.com/content/printVersion/209786/ [Accessed 22 November 2010

3.      Sandee Richardson, 1998. Net spreads message, draws in recruits [online] Stormfront. Available at: http://www.stormfront.org/dblack/press062898.htm [Accessed 22 November 2010]

4.      SherWeb, 2009. Hate groups and social networking [online] Available at: http://blog.sherweb.com/hate-groups-and-social-networking/ [Accessed 22 November 2010

5.      Extremism in America, 2010. About the Ku Klux Klan [online]  Available at: http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/kkk/default.asp?LEARN_Cat=Extremism&LEARN_SubCat=Extremism_in_America&xpicked=4&item=kkk [Accessed on 22 November 2010]

6.      Serg Born, 2010. Hate groups and Internet [online] Available at: http://ezinearticles.com/?Hate-Groups-and-the-Internet&id=4314311 [ Accessed on 22 November 2010]

7.      Jacqui Cheng, 2010. Online presence of hate, terrorist groups up 20% [online] Available at: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/online-presence-of-hate-terrorist-groups-up-20.ars [Accessed on 23 November 2010]

8.      Wikipedia.org, viewed on 23 November 2010,available from  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

9.      Ethics in media communications: cases and controversies third edition, Louis Alvin    Day 2000

Group assignment -Q7

Question 7: should media be free from constraints and law in order to ensure that their articles are objectives and fair?

  Media have the largest influences in this media age. This is because media can reach large amount of audience and they are able to spread the news in a few second to the world. It is true that the media have such powerful ability to influence the public. Therefore the media are under the control of constraints and law in order to avoid the media to discuss some sensitive issues.

  There are many constraints and law that media have for example like economics constraints, law constraints and etc. The media need to concern about the ownership and law from the particular country when they write their article to avoid being punished.

The media should be free from constraints and law so that their articles are objectives and fair. This is because when the media are owned by the government or particular political party, the media have to consider their boss’s benefits and reputation also. They shouldn’t report something true but will affect their boss’s reputation to the public. It they do so, they might lose their job in order of not maintaining their boss’s reputation.

  There are a few constraints that the media is facing now. The first one will be economic constraints. Media nowadays are much more depending on the advertisers and sponsorship. There is no way to debate about the ethics in media when the financial structures of the media are so transparently unfair. The media are depending on the financial support from the advertisers and sponsors to operate their company. Once the news is threatening their boss, they will lose their sponsorship and advertisement. For an example, when a press is controlling by a political party or the government, there are many rules and regulations that the press need to beware of. They have to make sure what they report is not affect the reputation of their boss. Or else they might lose their job and allowance. This had become one of the barriers that prevent the media having complete freedom to report the news.

  The second constraints will be the law constraints. The media have to follow certain law that might prevent them from reporting the truth. For an example in United Kingdom, the reporters are not allow to report the criminal’s name in an murder case until the criminals are under conviction. This had brings difficulties to the media to report the news to alert the public when the suspects are not under arrest yet. The public might being endangered by the suspects and the media should have the responsibilities to alert the public about the case and the suspects. But when they have to follow the laws that shouldn’t report the criminal’s name when the criminals will be presumed as innocent until proven guilty, this will be the constraint for the media. The media have no completely freedom to report the truth when there are constraints and laws that limit their freedom of speech.  

  However, when the media are totally free from constraints and law, there might be some problems occurs. Especially for the country which have many different ethnics such as Malaysia. The media might accidently cover some news that might annoy some other ethnics group and caused conflict happen. 

  Therefore, there should have some law to control what the media deliver to the public to ensure the society stay harmony. But there shouldn’t have economics constraints for the media. This is because when the media are under control of certain political party, they are not able to reports in fair and objective way. This is because they have to maintain the reputation of their boss.

                                                                                                                   (624 words)

Group assignment -Q5

NO 5. “Criminals are drawn to the internet because the cloak of cyberspace is virtually impenetrable.” Discuss the statement.

  Internet was an attraction place for criminals to focus their attention because it offered some unique opportunities and features. The behaviors that a perpetrator of violence engages in serve three functional purposes to protect their identity, to ensure the successful completion of the offense, and to facilitate an escape if necessary. Internet offers anonymity to its user; it is attractive to potential perpetrators. Identity on the internet is flexible, and people, if they choose, can achieve total anonymity. The internet transcends spatial boundaries. The internet offers equalization of status (net democracy), where a person is influence is base on his or her skill level. Anyone can access almost any part of the internet. The internet allows appearance. People can mask it; there are some advantages to crime and violence taking place on the internet to the criminal.

  Actually what is criminal of the cyberspace? Criminal of the cyberspace is often the case; there will be an extra hurdle for them to get into others people account. The problem of these criminal gangs that contract to the hackers, and their apparent immunity from the law. Cybercriminal gangs will do whatever they want in the internet. They will hack others people account, passwords and more. The case of the cybercriminal had been increase in a certain time a year and it will cause a lot of bad effect to the society.

  The bad effect of the cybercriminal to the society is they will steal others people profiles, personal detail, password and account from the internet to enter their private area especially of the social networking such as Face book, blog, and messenger. Cybercriminal use others people profiles, personal detail and account to do the bad things such as stolen their money from the bank, get their company information, use others pictures to make the erotic picture and more.

  Some of the way that the cybercriminal to steal others people profiles, passwords and more is sending the virus such as spam, Trojan (panda security, 2010), phishing, spyware, evil twin, portaging and international schemes (gamblingonlinemagazine, 2010). Thus the criminal can makes stealing millions of small amounts quick and easy to get the money from both the gaming sites and the gamblers using them.

  There are many reasons why a person likes to crime on the internet. The reason is the criminal might choose to obscure their identity and become anonymous. Several of these reasons are legal, legitimate and socially approved of there are many criminal like to acts of charity are performed anonymously, for whatever reason, to be acknowledged for their action. There are also many illegal reasons to hide behind the criminal. Criminals typically try to keep themselves anonymous either to conceal the fact that a crime has been committed, or to avoid capture. Anonymity may also be created unintentionally, through the loss of identifying information due to the passage of time or a destructive event.

  Most commentary the criminal on the internet, their names can take on an identity of their own, they are frequently separated from an anonymous from the actual author, and creating more freedom of expression, and less accountability. The internet also did not guaranteed the criminal since IP addresses, in principle, can be tracked, allowing to identify the computer from which a certain post was made, albeit not the actual user.

although there is a lot of the cybercriminal in the cyberspace, there is also having some ways to reduce the cybercriminal in the cyberspace to us and protect ourselves. The way to reduce the cybercriminal is “Green address bar”. This signifies that the site has undergone extensive identity authentication so that you can be confident it is the site it claims to be. The‘s’ in “https://” means the site is encrypted, so the information you enter is secured. “The padlock icon” is to be meaningful this icon must appear in the actual browser interface and not inside the content of the page itself. “Trust marks” is popular trust marks like logos can indicate important things about an online business. And, “Check the web address” is be suspicious of any site with an unknown domain that contains the name of a well-known site in the latter part of the web address. (gamblingonlinemagazine, 2010) There is also have a technology approach may grant a higher degree of security than centralized anonymzing services where a central point exists that could disclose one's identity which call Anonymizing services such as 12P- The Anonymous Network or Tor address the issue of IP tracking to try to protect our information while we are looking through the internet. (Wikipedia, 2010)

  Thus, criminal are drawn to the internet because the cloak of the cyberspace is virtually impenetrable. The criminal can use different IP of the network or use the free Wi-Fi of the coffee shop to crime others people computer. Thus the network company should take some action or created a software that can defend the criminal gangs continue to crime to the society and protect to the safety of the society.

(854 words)

Group assignment -Q4

NO 4. Is web content protected by copyright laws or can it be considered as public domain info?

  Writing an article is painstaking work, which requires a lot of time and effort. So when the writer is able to track down the person who distributed the work without permission, he or she may be able to sue for copyright violation.

  Copyright in simple words, is the right of the owner to permit someone to reproduce his or her work to anywhere. But how would the author know of the copyright violation? Writers usually read a lot and may stumble on a work of theirs on the net. Thus, even if the author does not find out, there are programs that search for matching text and content and many companies use these options to protect their content from theft. 

  Many people they just think that the information, images, graphics, and content are on the Internet are “free” to take and steal. But that is wrong! The information, images, content, and graphics all are protected under copyright laws and are known as intellectual property. The information, image, content, and graphic is free to read, look at, wonder about, and even write about. It is not free to steal, make money from it, or use it as your own. 

  There are some ways to protect the content of the web site which is register the content of the web site for copyright protection before the publication of the work. So the writer has the protection on their content. Writer also needs to display the clear sentences like “This article is protected under copyright laws.”, “Do not copy the contents as they are protected by copyright” or, at the bottom of each page, put the © symbol, the year (i.e., 2003 or 1998-2003), and who owns the material, whether it is your company or yourself. (Sbinfocanada, 2010) So the original content will be respected and protected.

  Actually what is public domain mean? The meaning of the public domain is, when a work is written, it's protected under copyright for a certain period of time. The exact length of time varies depending on the type of work and when it is created. Once a copyright expires, that work is considered to be in the public domain, and anyone can utilize and change the work in part or in whole, without copyright infringement. (life123, 2010)

  Here are a few good places to go for public domain to find the materials that can legitimately use. Which is “public domain image resources on Wikipedia” it is a places to find great images in the public domain. “Moving images collection at the internet archives” is an awesome set of video clips. “PD Info” is provides access to public domain and royalty-free music, as well as good information about how to determine whether a given song is indeed public domain. “Creative Commons search” is provides a wealth of images, video, and music for you to use. It actually searches across several databases including Flicker and Google. (Stratepedia, 2010) Note that some materials may be licensed in such a way that attribution of the original creator is required; even if it’s not required attribution’s still considered by many to be the cool thing to do.

  Although the information, image, graphic, and content become public domain, people should not use the information or content without getting permission. If the people want to use the information such as a complete article, story or essay, people should not use more than 2500 words or less than 10% of the work. (sbinfocanada, 2010)

 

  Thus, most of the web content is protected by the copyright laws although the web also can be considered as public domain. So, when the people want to use the content from the web, they can use it as public domain but not to copy all the content from the web because it will be copyright violence if copy all the content.

(660 words)

Group assignment -Q3

No3. The Internet is a place when hate groups come to inhabit. Discuss with relevant examples.

   Hate group is an organization whose primary purpose is to promote animosity, hostility or violence against persons belonging to a different race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability or any other designated sector which differs from that of the member of the organization. Hate group frequently involves in harassment and defamation. After the Internet has come to this world, hate groups started committing hate crimes and publishing hate speech through the Internet. However, their presence is growing faster lately due to the social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube and so on. 

   According to a report from the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), groups that advocate violence, terrorism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, racist and other forms of intolerance grew by 20 percent in the year 2009. There are now more than 11,500 social networks, websites, forums, and blogs that focus on spreading those groups’ philosophy, recruiting new members, and instructing people especially young people on how to hurt others. (Jacqui Cheng, 2010) Hate groups preferably aim at young people is because they are always unsophisticated, naive and easily convinced by those hate groups’ philosophy. In addition，young people are lack of experience or facts at hand to confront the propaganda that spread by the hate groups. Besides, young people have a frequency to often use the Internet. Therefore, the hate groups would like to inhabit in the Internet to advertise the cause of intolerance to their targeted group. (Serg Born, 2010)

   On other hand，the reason why the hate groups chose to inhabit online is because of the anonymity in the cyber world. It is difficult for the police to find out the people who commit the hate crime activities because police can only track the position of the people who commit hate crime through their IP address. But what if the people who commit hate crime are using the computer in the cyber café? Although there might be CCTV in the particular cyber café, however it is impossible for the police to track the criminals. Therefore, the anonymity online had provided a very secure environment for the hate crimes to inhabit. 

   In America, the hate groups such as Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, Creativity Movement, Hammerskins, Little Shell Pembina Band, Volksfront and White Revolution are all using the Internet to promote their philosophy which is based on white supremacist ideology. In the year 1995, the first major hate site, Stormfront was created by the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, Don Black. The first page of Stormfront has been designed with a label of “White Pride World Wide” which racial and political leanings are apparently shown. Stormfront includes essay, stories, email, forums, and upcoming events, achieves and links to more than 60 other groups. Stormfront presents itself as engaged in a struggle for unity, identifying culture, speech and free association as its core concerns, though members of Stormfront are especially passionate about racial purity. (Sandee Richardson, 1998)

   In the year 1998, an interview for the alternative weekly newspaper Miami New Times, the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, Don Black mentioned that the Internet is a boon for them because before the Internet has been created, Ku Klux Klan can only reach people with pamphlets or holding rallies with no more than a few hundred people but now they can reach potentially millions through the Internet.(Sandee Richardson, 1998) In this interview, it shows that Internet is a very efficient tool to help transmitting message to a large audience. 

   Besides, nowadays the social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are a place where those hate groups can easily spread their philosophy or post the video of their rally. There are a lot of hate groups established in Facebook for example a group called Israel which is already removed due to the terms of Facebook rules and regulations. However, owing to the worldwide connection of the Internet, it is difficult to control the activities that are conducted by the hate groups.

(681 words)

Group assignment -Q2

Q2. Should parent allow children under the age of 12 to go on the internet without adult supervision? Discuss.

  Most of the teenagers nowadays are internet friendly and are able to access to the internet by themselves. However, recently there is one phenomenon where there are more and more children are getting addicted to the cyber world. Therefore here is the argument states that should parent allow children under age of 12 to go online without adult supervision?

  Honestly have to say that the cyber world is full of information but there is also much temptation. There are many traps on the internet and internet violence that are waiting for those who are not mature enough to get deceive. We have to know that the internet is not only providing good messages, but there are also information that is not that suitable for children who are below 12 years old. For example is porn online. Children nowadays are more mature compare to the children in the past. They have very strong curiosity about the relationship between male and female. They are also curious about the body of their opposite sex. When the parents are not able to explain or teach them in this topic, they will try to search it online whiles the information online might not true and over exaggerate. They will belief on what they had seen and the worst thing will be they try to imitate what they had seen online.

  Besides that there are many cheater online are trying to know cheat the young lady. Girl at the age 10 to 12 are hopes to get attention from their family. When their families are not cautious about this, they might try to get attention from cyber world. There are many pervert online are searching for those young girl and cheat at them. They will first pretend to be caring and when they get their trust, they will ask those girls out and thus tragedy happens. There are many cases that the underage girl being abused by their online friends. Therefore adult supervision plays an important role in this.

  Besides that, children who are under the age of 12 years old are not mature enough to differentiate what is good and what is bad. They might get into some bad sites such as porn sites and hate crimes sites. Their thought will being influence and that will lead to a big problem if the parents do not correct their wrong thought on time. Besides that, children under age of 12 are not able to control themselves from being addicted to the online games. They might neglect their study and failed in their exam.

  Moreover, children who under age of 12 should be taught of basic internet safety such as do not give your home address and phone number to those who you know online. This is to prevent the children stumbling upon porn or falling prey to pedophiles. They should know what should they do when they online and what shouldn’t. 

  Therefore, adult supervision are important in avoiding children under age of 12 getting addicted to online games, pornography and avoiding from being the prey for those who intend to cheat online. It is not rational that parents allow children under the age of 12 to go on the internet without adult supervision.  

(553 words)