Reading and watching the assortment of videos provided this week has really opened my eyes to the affects laws have regarding media and the internet overall. Everything from copyright, network neutrality, censorship, and defamation are important to understand in order to avoid any illegal actions. It’s important to understand these complicated laws regarding the internet and closely pay attention to the information we release into the internet.
While I browse, scroll, and post through websites and social media, things such as copyright, net neutrality, censorship, and defamation are typically not in my mind. I have worried about all of them separately from time to time, but never have they been a large concern to me. When I think of copyright laws I often think of videos and whatnot I see on YouTube that violate these laws. Most often I watch clips from TV shows, especially House M. D., that come from random publishers who have no right to be posting the material. I believe that there is so much copyright infringement out there that it is nearly impossible to keep up with it all. Personally, I have never been a victim of it (that I know of, at least). Net neutrality is important as well now a day. To put it simply it ensures that businesses can compete freely on the internet without having to pay gatekeeper tolls. Internet censorship is the control of information that can be viewed by the public. This stops people from accessing copyrighted information, keeps people from viewing harming content, controls internet crime, and overall helps monitor the billions of users of the internet. Defamation occurs when someone posts slander or libel on a webpage in any form (comment, post, blog, video, etc.). Defamation is harmful to someone’s reputation and published in result of malice or negligence. All are very important and are in place to protect internet users.
Personally, I knew of most of these laws. And as I am aware of them, I haven’t purposely broken any that I know of (I hope you haven’t either). As I stated before I most often see copyright laws being violated on YouTube, but further I see images violated more and more in news. Without really realizing it, I read or hear about all sorts of violations in the news. Most often I see celebrities being sued by photographers when they use their photographs without permission. Everyone from Ariana Grande, Kim Kardashian, and Jennifer Lopez have violated copyright laws. I actually had a friend who sued for defamation after an ex-boyfriend leaked her private photos. As I always say, anything ever sent or posted on the internet stays on the internet forever.
Collecting all my thoughts, I probably won’t be modifying the way I use social media as of now. Already I am very cautious on the internet, so I don’t believe I need to specifically watch out for internet laws. I am very grateful and have learned a lot through both this class and others experiences to understand how dangerous the internet can be. Like anything, the internet is a privilege and needs to be taken seriously. Stay safe out there!
