Virgina Tech, healing online

This post doesn't have anything to do with law but I wanted to talk about the internet as it has helped get people connected after the horrific events that happened less than 2 weeks ago at Virgina Tech. If you go on Facebook.com you can find dozens of groups created to memorialize the victims and to allow people to talk about how they feel and give their condolences to families and friends. The internet also had a huge role on the day of the shootings as phones weren't working on the campus. Many students couldn't get in touch with families because the phone lines went down due to overload so they got online and imed and emailed everyone they could.

I can't even imagine what would have happened if the internet was not around to help these victims get in touch with their families.

restrictions on China's internet

It seems that China doesn't want it's citizens to view "unhealthy" content on the internet. The Communist Party is trying to control the internet for the safety and health of their citizens supposedly. They feel that there is too much incorrect propaganda on the internet that their citizens should be restricted when viewing it. It's not that they don't trust their citizen's, it's just that the internet is unpure and the citizens should not have to view false or unpure things.

This is not the first time that the president of China has attempted to reign over the internet. The last meeting was in January and there were meetings that occured before that. President Hu is trying get tighter controls on the youth of China in order to keep rebellion from happening. In addition to simply trying to put restrictions on the internet, it seems that big investors like Google and Yahoo
have been lending a helping hand to China's censors.

I was shocked to find out that the government already has a huge system of filters and censorship that blocks many users from sites that offer uncensored opinion and news! They claim they are doing this to keep the people safe and unharmed but they are really just trying to brainwash all the people of China.

xxx. domain names

I think it would have been a good idea to have pornographic websites use the domain 'xxx' because it would make it much more difficult for children to access them. If a child were doing a report on animal abuse they could type that phrase in on google and come across tons of websites. The problem is that many of them would be pornographic ones and the child would not know until he or she went onto the website causing them to see some inappropriate pictures. Using 'xxx' for porn sites would allow search engines to block those sites from being shown unless the person specifically asks for porn sites. I ask why wouldn't we want this? Schools have the 'edu' domain and government sites are 'gov' and commerical 'com' so what makes porn sites so special? Parents would have an easier time blocking these websites by using software to detect domain names with 'xxx' in the title and they could feel a bit better about allowing their children to do research on the web.

1st ammendment on the web

I recently read an article on cnn.com about a girl who wrote derogatory comments about her school's principal. She was at first put on probation after the court determined she was a delinquent child but she appealed stating that her comments were protected political speech under both the state and federal constitutions because they dealt with school policy. The court found this to be the case and dropped the charges. Now, I ask was this the right decision? Should a student really be able to criticize an authority because she doesn't believe in their policy on body piercing? The answer, I believe, is yes but it does go to a certain extent. If all she did was criticize his policies then she is protected but if she, or anyone else, were to make derogatory comments about the principal himself then it's slander and they should be punished.

How do we go about catching and punishing people who write derogatory comments about others on the web? If we were to catch someone criticizing another person on their myspace page how can we prove it unless we catch them right then and there because otherwise they can just delete it.

Online worship

Is online worship a good idea? Many people think it's good for people that can't get out of their house because they're elderly or perhaps due to weather conditions. Others believe it's a way to keep religion in their busy day to day lives without having to take time to go to their place of worship and miss time with their family. Just opening a website, one can read the bible, chat with others, and view videos of religious ceremonies. This simplification, some argue, causes a rift in community. A major part of going to one's religious ceremonies every week is to meet people in one's community and to build friendships and stronger communities. The flip side of this argument, however, is that when one attends one's own religious ceremony he or she is only meeting people with the same religious views as themself and therefore only learning one way of life.


I don't think there is anything we can do about this either way. People want to have the most convenient way of doing everything today and religious worship is just another thing to add to the list. Are we really too lazy to go to church or temple or anyplace else we worship once a week? I do, however, understand the other side of the argument. Some people simply have too much going on in their lives and worshipping online is better than not worshipping and having faith at all.