Saturday 29 February 2020

What happens when the internet vanishes?

Summary

In “What happens when the internet vanishes?” mentioned the issue of controlling the internet by government. This matter is controversial whether the advantages of this action far outweigh the disadvantages or not. In some country, governments decided to shut down the internet for security reasons. They believe that this action can be vulnerable to terrorist activity. However, the benefit of blackouts the internet is still vague. When the internet vanishes, it strongly affects economic value. The businesses cannot contact to their oversea partnerships and costumers. Also, businesses like online shop and delivery cannot run on. Shutdown the internet also relates to the human rights issue. As the UN state clearly that internet access is a human right since 2016, blackouts can mean limits people right. In 2019, the data showed that the most shutdowns happened in Asia and India has a far highest number of shutdowns.

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Response 

At first, I thought that this article was about a psychological issue for example how internet addiction affects our mind. However, This was totally misunderstanding. There was nothing related to psychology. It is more about human rights and politic. I found out that this issue surprises me. In Thailand, some of the information is blocked, but we never have internet blackout by the government before. I could not imagine how people in those countries can live without the internet for months. Last week, I experienced an internet shutdown for 30 minutes because of technical mistake of TrueMove. I felt like I was blocked from the outer world. I could not know what happened to my internet connection because I could not reach Google. This was a bad experience. But what about people who cannot access the internet for a long time. How can they live?


From the article, I knew that internet blackout has a huge benefit on people security. This reason is understandable, but I do not whether it is the best solution. Shutdown situation reminded me about one of my high school essay “Security or Privacy.” I think Security and Privacy is a good point to analyse this situation. If people want security, shutdowns might be the answer because it can reduce terrorist activity, as mentioned in the passage. By the way, if people want privacy, the internet should be free for everyone, and this way will benefit economic growth. However, this is pretty idealistic because we want both. To be honest, I do not have the answer about whether blackouts is good. Also, in my essay, I chose to be in the middle, balancing between security and privacy and my grade did not turn out as good that term. So I do not think I am the right person to talk with either “internet shutdowns” or “Privacy or Security” issues. However, the article from the BBC opens my eyes and let me learn something new.

 
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Question


Do you think government should limit internet accessibility for a security reason or not?
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Reference

3 comments:

  1. Wow! Your first paragraph is currently a bit hard to read. Don't worry. I had already made plans to address the issue here. In fact, I edited Emma's blog post to change a few formatting issues. I think I've worked out a solution to the cause or this another potential problem.

    If necessary, I will also edit Mudmee's post in a day or two.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't normally make any changes to what you post, but I did change the colour of Mudmee's summary from yellow, which I found difficult to read, to the more standard black formatting.

      Delete
  2. I really like a point that Mudmee raises in the second paragraph of her response before her related question for readers. But I don't want to prejudice the discussion by telling you what I think. I'd like to see your ideas in response to Mudmee first.

    I also like her concrete example of when the Internet went down for 30 minutes. For me, that would seem a very long time! If I'm working or just relaxing and the Internet goes down, it's a big problem. I start feeling frustrated after about one minute, and try to solve the problem, after calling customer service. Fortunately, my provider provides an excellent service that is extremely reliable. I can't remember the last time there was a failure, but it was probably a couple of years ago. I ended up using my phone's wi-fi hotspot to run my computers and TV. I was surprised how well that worked: it wasn't ideal, but my regular 4G connection can clearly move a lot of data. I'm looking forward to the widespread adoption of 5G, which promises amazing connection and data transfer sppeds.

    In a later comment I might talk about Mudmee's interesting question. But now it's your turn.

    ReplyDelete

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