be a good netizen We have to be responsible for our actions on the Internet
ECENTLY, I received an email from
a communications specialist in Britain verifying if I had dropped him an email asking for a media freebie. I was pretty shocked to receive that note because it included the email originally sent to him from someone identifying as myself using personal details obviously available freely on the Internet. But I never sent that email. I have long been aware of the issue of digital footprint, and as much as I share a lot of information on the Net, I try to be cautious of what kind of information I share. Still, to encounter a situation where the common information name, job, location you readily share, is being used, can be quite disconcerting. In this case, through someone elses efficiency in doing his job, we managed to address the issue. The same cannot be said for many other issues related to this digital world we now live in not just in terms of censorship and control, but privacy and surveillance. A couple of weeks ago, I spent three days with more than 100 activists, academicians and journalists from around the world at the Regional Conference on Media and Internet Freedom in Kuala Lumpur, organised by the South-East Asian Press Alliance
(look for the #MediaNetAsia14 hashtag
to follow the discourse). More than 26 issues were formally covered at the conference and while all discussions were robust, it did bring forth to light some revelations I had not spent too much time worrying about before. There were some aspects that were outright frightening; technological experts warned us about how easy it is for someone to hack into our devices and activists spoke out against governments who were legitimising surveillance through legislation (or through sneaky methods). Some spoke about how commercial organisations were profiling its customers (and how they were using the data) while others discussed the ethical implications of data mining in the quest to seek truth. In fact, things got so grim at one point that Dont be paranoid became the mantra for some parts of the final day. Having said all that, it was very heartening as well to see so many people speak passionately about these issues, sharing personal experiences and case studies from the world over. I left thingking that if we are afraid, we are not alone, and if we want to fight back, there are others doing exactly just that.
Unfortunately, we cannot just rely on
others to solve these problems. For one, history has shown that the state cannot be fully trusted all the time nor can we simply rely on civil society to fight our battles for us. We the people too have to ensure that we are empowered to address those issues. At the conference, one common theme that kept reappearing was education; some suggested that ethics could be part of the education system while others thought the media could take on a bigger role in educating the masses. For me, all of these boil down to the issue of literacy. So besides education and relying on the media, we too need to be proactive in understanding about and helping shape digital culture. In this day where so many people are connected to the Internet and the number of digital natives is multiplying, there is an increasing need for us to be aware of how the Internet works but also consider the issues of ethics, propriety and constant change. Just like how we go about our offline lives within societal structures we have developed collectively over the years, we must do the same online. Activist Rebecca McKinnon, in her book Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle For Internet
Freedom, spoke of the rise of the digital
commons the virtual equivalent of Tocquevilles civil society, through which citizens can mobilise to express their interest and protect their rights. This can only work if we all take the responsibility of our actions and behaviour in the digital world; not just by being good netizens but also by advocating for a free Internet (to ensure that space is not limited to some more than others), standing up for issues they feel strongly about and keeping institutions state, commercial, media and more accountable for their actions. We can start by understanding how our actions or inactions affect each other from the things we say to what we share. Then there are issues that also impact our lives directly privacy, surveillance, access to data, intellectual property and freedom of expression, as some examples. The fact is that we are already so reliant on this new world and this will only increase in the future. This means we will also need to protect ourselves more, not just by being aware of how we are negotiating the space but also in advocating for a more free and safe environment to exist in. The conference has reminded me that it is time for me to invest more heavily my stake in this world, and perhaps you should too.
Wednesday 5 November 2014
by Niki Cheong
starMetrO
bANGSAr boY reTUrNS
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n Niki believes that
we should all be advocates of freedom both online and offline. Connect with him via his blog at http://blog. nikicheong.com or Facebook (http://bit. ly/nikicheong)