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Opinion: The dark side of the Internet

Opinion

Opinion: The dark side of the Internet

Perhaps the most influential invention of the past 75 years is the Internet—a way to connect instantly with our friends and loved ones, to meet new people, and to network and share ideas.

The Internet has been able to provide a voice for the mute, give courage to the shy, and has sparked connections that have evolved into loving relationships. But like most good things, there is a dark side: an underground network of pirates, predators, perverts and scammers.

Movie piracy has been around since the first person connected together two VCRs, and so has the debate about it.

Since the advent of the Internet, piracy has started a huge problem for the film and the music industry. It may not be the most taboo crime on the Internet, but it is wrong and illegal.

An amazing film or album that should have been successful can fail because more people choose to pirate rather than pay. This is especially true for independent films, which have to work hard just to earn back their budget.

Most of us are guilty of some Internet piracy, but to save the art we love, we must not steal it.

Internet scams are nothing new.

They are deceptive acts of indiscriminate manipulation, aimed at innocent, ignorant, and vulnerable people.

To make sure that you never become a victim you must be vigilant. The Nigerian Scam, named for the original incarnation of the scam, was a random email explaining that a large amount of money from Nigeria has to be transferred into a United States bank account for safety.

For helping out, the victim was told they would get a percentage, sometimes millions of dollars. Of course this is not true, only a way to get the victim’s bank account information.
Other scams include counterfeit websites. They are made to look like legit websites so that you enter your personal information. Always double-check the address bar.
The Internet can also be very dangerous, not only for finances but also for lives. Evil Internet predators lurk on the web with the intent to harm.
They hide in online chat rooms and wait for kids or vulnerable people, where they try to lure a meeting.
These encounters can be harmful or even deadly. There is a presence of police task forces and investigators online but the danger is out there.
Parents need to take control and leave nothing to chance. Teaching a child of the dangers of online predators is very important; stranger danger is online too.
The web can sometimes go beyond taboo into a place that is disturbing, disgusting, and evil. The website 4chan describes itself as an image based online form with emphasis on anonymity, which is true.
But anonymity sometimes comes at a cost, and it is that cost that I believe the website should be taken down. The website has a sub-form that is titled “Not Safe For Work (NSFW),” and this is used for disturbed individuals to share and gawk at illicit pictures ranging from human mutilation to borderline child porn.
The Internet is a place to express freedom of thoughts and ideas, a place almost free from censorship, but there is a line that has been crossed on 4chan.
The website does moderate and take down illegal images when they are posted. But it allows the “technically” legal images.
These include very young girls in very little clothing, crime scene photos of horrible murders, etc. The sub form on 4chan is morally repugnant and the laws need to change to combat the evil shared there.
This article was not meant to discourage the active use of the Internet, but was meant as a warning of the dark side. The Internet is a great tool that can be used to accomplish many things. It blows my mind that people were able to graduate college before the Internet was invented.
The World Wide Web will continue to grow and so must our regulation of it. I am a firm supporter of keeping the web reasonably uncensored, but we have a moral and ethical responsibility to keep it safe for everyone who utilizes the freedom of expression and power of information on the Internet.

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