2012: The Year of the Orwell?

Chris Brown wins a Grammy? What? We'll get back to that later.


I saw a couple of news reports today that sparked the title for today's blog post. I'd like to lay them out here with some of my own thoughts and as for yours as well.

1. Brazil is suing Twitter over people's tweets about police activity.

Twitter announced earlier this year that it would start deleting tweets according to government requests, which threw some people into an uproar and even spawned a mild, albeit ineffective, blackout on Twitter. The Brazilian government is one of the first to take them up on this offer, which takes me back to a SOPA issue that many had. Can a website that acts as a constant public forum be held responsible for what people are posting on it? Many people's fear with SOPA was that websites could be taken down because someone posted material that may have been copyrighted, even if the website owner was unaware that the material was copyrighted and the poster was not affiliated with the website. Do people have the right to post things like warnings of police roadblocks or checkpoints? I can't say that the Brazilian government doesn't have good measure for wanting to enact on this. These checkpoints are set up for good reason, and warning others of their presence renders them basically useless. On top of that, the money spent on setting up and manning the roadblock become wasted and fruitless. Does allowing the Brazilian government to have these deleted open the floodgates for future censorship in a time when it may not be as warranted as this situation is? Where do you draw the line? I can't decide. I see merit on both sides of the argument. I think that the censored tweets situation is going to be a case-by-case argument in which there will very possibly be times when it goes too far and should not be enacted by Twitter. 


2. Surveillance drones-Not just for overseas anymore.

How do you feel about  a stealthy little surveillance-ocopter buzzing around keeping an eye on what you do? This is not a fictional extension of George Orwell's mindset of our world, but an actual reality. Aside from the obvious privacy invasion innate to this, these drones would also be sharing the airspace with commercial airlines. Can you imagine? Flying at a safe altitude, and suddenly hearing a *clunk* from outside. The captain comes over the intercom, "No worries folks. That was just a government surveillance drone we ran into. Nothing to be concerned about." How is this not getting more attention than it is? How are people not questioning the lengths to which this will be allowed to go? I've read that some privacy advocates are up in arms about it, but is the average person aware of this? Has anyone been keeping any tabs on the depth to which these drones would be allowed to spy on the average person? I'd be curious to hear people's response on this. 


Finally, if I went to Hollywood with a script in my hand and pitched the idea, "Ok, so this guy is a musical artist. He has some hits, but then he beats the daylights out of his girlfriend. He only gets probation since he's famous, but then he comes back to win Best R&B Album at the Grammy Awards." They'd laugh me out of the room and tell me that you could never get an audience behind a guy who beats his girlfriend. Hollywood couldn't even make this stuff up. 


Well that's it for this post. I just wanted to put out there some things that I saw and I'd love to hear reactions, thoughts, and arguments about these, on either side of the argument. 


Robzie