Digital Nostradamus
Listen, good people of the internet, and listen well, for we are living in the closing of an age!. For long years we have enjoyed a golden era of freedom and uncensored expression, but all that is going to change. Ye, verily the end has cometh!
Don’t believe my half-crazed doomsaying? You should. We’ve all become used to the internet as a place where you can say, show or do pretty much what you like, and all for free to boot. But that state of affairs may be about to change.
Two recent news stories, both involving Google, set me on this train of thought. First to catch my eye was this, which centers around Google being taken to court in Australia for allowing an advert, which allegedly infringes another company’s copyright, to appear in their advertising section. If found liable, Google will be made responsible for, and thus have to begin screening, any adverts they sell with their web searches.
Back in good old blighty, there have been calls, both from the police and other groups, for Youtube (owned of course by those ever-industrious folks at Google) to take a far more active stance in monitoring what content is posted on their site, prompted in this instance by videos of kids fighting that have been posted on the site. They feel that the system of flagging inappropriate material is insufficient, and clips should all be thoroughly screened before being available to view. Read the full story here.
By now you may be asking yourself what effect this has on you. After all, you might think, I don’t buy internet advertising or film happy slapping attacks for the benefit of the masses. What is there for me to worry about?
The potential problems are twofold. Firstly, it is only a small leap from requiring that search engines monitor the content of adverts and the sights they link with to requiring that they monitor and be responsible for every link they display. Once that happens, it will definitely infringe of the web-use of Joe Blogs and the millions like him.
Even so, as long as your not posting anything offensive or illegal, that shouldn’t worry you, right? Wrong. Because this level of oversight of content will be expensive for webistes and search engines to maintain, and that cost is going to be passed straight on to us. What does that mean? It means if you want Google ( or whoever) to display a link to your website when someone types in a relevant search, then you’re going to have to pay for it, mister. Goodbye, largely unrestricted free speech, fan-made forums and homespun blogs and podcasts. Hello, big corporations and soaring credit card bills.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Gaming Wisdom of the Crafty Banana 