Tuesday, March 8, 2011

We Are Little Brother

In general I view hacktivism to be a bad thing. There are occasions where hacktivism can be used for good, but usually it's just a way to attack people on a scale that doesn't come close to what those people did. I'm not too familiar with human-flesh search engines, but for the most part they are not the kind of thing that I would associate with justice. Yes, making people accountable for their actions is nice but all-out assault on them is something that I can't accept.

In our culture we usually hail the vigilante as a hero; just take a look at various superheroes. Even if what that vigilante does is illegal, or the person/entity they're going after hasn't actually done anything illegal people still usually like them because it appeals to our sense of righteousness. This doesn't often equate to justice, however. Calling someone a poopy doo-doo head and then having death threats sent to you isn't exactly an equal response from the threat senders. That example is a bit extreme, but that's usually how these things work out. The response from the Internet is usually blown way out of proportion compared to what actually happened.

1 comment:

  1. Most internet response is over the top. It's a battle that can never be won (going back to the internet tough guy). Though I can see where posting a cat stomping video can bring out the worst in people!

    ReplyDelete