The Internet Brings More Harm Than Good free essay sample

Horror screamers and horror movies, that traumatize people, especially children 3. Violence and gore movies that contain excessive amounts of violence and gore 4. cyber bullying social networks or blogs flaming or flaming through gaming 5. leaking personal information accidentally through social networks 6. false information websites that give wrong information 7. involvement in criminal acts, such as piracy. Cheat money black markets Proposition: 1st Speaker: Kai Jie 4 5 6 7 2nd Speaker: Anton 1 2 3 3rd Speaker: Jared 8 9 Reply Speaker: Anton Defining the motion First, i will be defining the motion. We feel that the definition of the motion is that the internet has many opportunities for people to come across pictures, videos, people-to-people interaction, and so on and so forth, that may cause future harm not only to the person himself, but also to the people around him. This is so much to the point that there are more negative than positive effects of using the internet. As for our roles, i will be speaking about cyber bullying, leaking of personal information, false information and viral websites or virus that kill computers. as for anton, he will be touching on videos or movies that bring harm to a person such as pornography, horror and violence and gore, while jared will be talking about ease of access to easy access to criminal, offensive or discriminatory information, and last but not least criminal offences through the internet such as unreliable markets. The first reason why i feel that the internet does more harm than good is because there is a lot of cyber bullying going on on the internet. So what is cyber bullying? Cyberbullying is the use of technology to harass, threaten, embarrass, or target another person. By definition, it occurs among young people. When an adult is involved, it may meet the definition of cyber-harassment or cyber-stalking, a crime that can have legal consequences and involve jail time. Sometimes cyberbullying can be easy to spot — for example, if you receive a text message, tweet, or response to a status update on Facebook that is harsh, mean, or cruel. So far, in this year of 2012 itself, 32% of online teens say they have been targets of a range of annoying or potentially menacing online activities. 15% of teens overall say someone has forwarded or posted a private message they’ve written, 13% say someone has spread a rumor about them online, 13% say someone has sent them a threatening or aggressive message, and 6% say someone has posted embarrassing pictures of them online. As a result, we can see that the internet brings much harm because of the evident abundance of cyber bullying going around on the internet. The second reason why we agree with the motion that the internet does more harm than good is because some sites allow conmen to trick people into giving them their personal information such as telephone numbers, house address, IC, and even bank account number, etc. Everyone’s privacy can be greatly harmed by the Internet. Some websites store information. Some ask us to fill in information which can be sold to other sites for commercial purposes. As the Internet gains more and more users the temptation for criminals to gain our private information becomes greater. Hackers can hide their true location when engaging in illegal activities online, so the likelihood of their being brought to justice is low. Whenever people post something online, it becomes almost impossible to erase, and with the proliferation of social networks posting personal information online is becoming second nature, this is a dangerous precedent. Take for example the posting of our locations online via geotagging, this for many is an action which doesn’t take much consideration, however, to demonstrate the danger of this designer Barry Borsoom setup the website PleaseRobMe. om which would grab geocaching data and tell people when a person’s house was potentially empty. With the aid of the Internet then, we are symbolically sleepwalking into a big brother style existence, in an information age all data about ourselves is an important asset and one which needs defending. The infringement and degradation of our privacy as a side-result of the Internet should be of great concern, and it is potentially one of the most detrimental effects the Internet could have on society. The third reason why we agree with the motion that the internet does more harm than good is because the Internet has become a major source of information for many people. However, online information has usually not gone through the same checks as newspaper articles, books or factual television programming. There is a higher risk that some of the facts or quotations from a particular source in an article are false. Whereas newspapers might lose customers if people find out they have been ‘selling lies’, a blog and other online content can be easily created and uploaded as well as just as quickly being deleted. If people base their opinions on the information they find online, they could well be basing their opinion on false information. Since the Internet gives equal space to material of greatly varying quality, the degree to which the internet can been viewed as being a total force for good is drawn into question. If an informed society is an empowered society it therefore stands to reason that a misinformed society is disempowered society, and thus showing that the internet does more harm than good. false info The Internet has become a major source of information for many people. However, online information has usually not gone through the same checks as newspaper articles, books or factual television programming. There is a higher risk that some of the facts or quotations from a particular source in an article are false. Whereas newspapers might lose customers if people find out they have been ‘selling lies’, a blog and other online content can be easily created and uploaded as well as just as quickly being deleted. If people base their opinions on the information they find online, they could well be basing their opinion on false information. Take for example the 2006 conspiracy film Loose Change which has had millions of views. A report from the thinktank Demos in a report titled â€Å"Truth, Lies and the Internet: A Report into Young People’s Digital Fluency† state that the film contains a â€Å" litany of errors, misattributions, vague insinuations, subtle misquotes, and outright falsehoods † Since the Internet gives equal space to material of greatly varying quality, the degree to which the internet can been viewed as being a total force for good is drawn into question. If an informed society is an empowered society it therefore stands to reason that a misinformed society is disempowered society. privacy Everyone’s privacy can be greatly harmed by the Internet. Some websites store information. Some ask us to fill in information which can be sold to other sites for commercial purposes. As the Internet gains more and more users the temptation for criminals to gain our private information becomes greater. Hackers can hide their true location when engaging in illegal activities online, so the likelihood of their being brought to justice is low. Whenever people post something online, it becomes almost impossible to erase, and with the proliferation of social networks posting personal information online is becoming second nature, this is a dangerous precedent. Take for example the posting of our locations online via geotagging, this for many is an action which doesn’t take much consideration, however, to demonstrate the danger of this designer Barry Borsoom setup the website PleaseRobMe. om which would grab geocaching data and tell people when a person’s house was potentially empty. With the aid of the Internet then, we are symbolically sleepwalking into a big brother style existence, in an information age all data about ourselves is an important asset and one which needs defending. The infringement and degradation of our privacy as a side-result of the Internet should be of great concern, and it is potentially one of the most detrimental effects the Internet could have on society. criminatory information The ability for anyone to be able to publish anything online without barriers resulted in a large amount of information which could not only be incorrect but could also be criminal, offensive or discriminatory if it were available to the general public. This sort of information would not usually be widely published via offline channels, but with the advent of the Internet it is very easily accessible by anyone like never before, and this is a dangerous president. A cavalcade of propaganda from extremist groups such as religious zealots or Neo-Nazis for example can be accessed by anyone around the world. This is dangerous as vulnerable people could easily be taken in and exploited if the discovered this material. It is quite often found that ‘lone-wolf’ terrorists, for example, have gotten their information and inspiration from the Internet. Garry Reid, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Combating Terrorism in the USA states that â€Å"Enabled by 21st-century technology, extremists have optimized the use of Internet chat rooms, Web sites and e-mail chains to spread their virulent messages and reach a global audience of potential recruits†. But it is not only terrorists who are utilizing the Internet at a detriment to society. Various reports have linked a sharp rise in paedophilia with the growth of the Internet as it is an easy and often anonymous way to share such material with the world. The ability for anyone to publish anything online could clearly do considerable harm to society, which would have otherwise been much less prevalent and easier to control and regulate. Points 1,2 and 3 Point 1: Pornography affects people’s mindsets and affects how they behave in the future. Pornography is abundant on the internet. There are many websites that contain inappropriate sexual content, especially for children and teenagers. Pornography can even be found on sites that people frequent, such as youtube. Pornography can come in several forms, the most common one being two people of the opposite gender inappropriately making love in a certain manner rather explicitly . Pornography even comes in the form of gays and lesbians making love, and this is of the more extreme side of pornography. We would say that pornography is not good for viewers because firstly, it manipulates the true meaning of people, man or woman, in the pornographic videos, so people may view these men or women as ornaments rather than human beings. Secondly, the viewing of pornography may encourage the viewers to partake in sexual crimes in their future in order to satisfy their accumulated sexual desires and lust from watching pornography, leading to rapists and sexual offenders, and thus a higher crime rate. According to statistics posted by â€Å"Deadline† on the 5th of August 2012, it states that the â€Å"easy availability of internet pornography† has been blamed for more than twice as many children facing sexual assault charges in the last year, according to campaigners. â€Å" and â€Å"The number of sexual assault cases by boys rose from 71 to 142 last year while the number of rapes by underage males also went up by 58 – more than double the figures for 2010. And even the figures relating to sexual attacks by girls under the age of 16 has doubled. † Lastly, pornography may become an addiction. People who are addicted to pornography spend prolonged periods of time viewing pornography, when they could be doing more important things in life, such as studying, working, or exercising. And this may carry on into the future, and as mentioned earlier, may lead to more sexual crimes and the manipulation of the true meaning of men or women. Point 2: Horror movies may traumatize children and even some adults. Horror movies are a major part of the entertainment business which have gone onto the internet, but it may do more harm and good depending of the maturity of the viewer. Like any other movie, horror movies are all fake and fictional, so they are not meant to be taken seriously. For these type of movies, there are ratings for them, such as NC16, M18 and R21, which indicate the recommended age before viewing the movie. However, on the internet, all of these ratings are mostly gone due to piracy ,and they would be easily accessed, so all viewers can watch horror movies. Our next speaker will elaborate further on this point of piracy. The people that horror movies do the most harm to are the children. The reason why this is so is that children are mostly not matured enough to accept the fact that horror movies are fake. When they view these horror videos on the internet, they are likely to be traumatized, and this could, like pornography, affect the children who viewed these videos, in the future. Point 3: Lastly, there are the movies that contain violence and gore. Like horror movies, these movies are a major part of the entertainment business, and they have also made their way to the intern in fact, most of the movies regardless of genre have made it to the internet, and especially to websites such as youtube. Violent and gory movies are mainly found in action and adventure movies. Though they serve as adrenaline rush, create tension and excitement, and make the videos more realistic, they also bring harm to people, and as mentioned earlier, mostly to children. Likewise, it is due to the children and their minds which are not matured enough to accept that all these movies are fake, so they may want to follow the characters in such movies, and may even grow up to become violent criminal, also leading to a higher crime rate.