BY SHAY CULLEN
EVERY industry and most service organizations are almost totally dependent on computer technology that needs connectivity through the internet.
Almost all communication is now internet-based: e-mail, voice, image and transmission of documents and information storage and dissemination. Conferences and meetings and educational classes are now mostly by Internet.
Yes, the internet is now an essential means of human interconnectivity and has become a blessing and a blight on human society depending on who and how it is used or abused. As you read these words, it is because they were sent to you over the internet.
And yes, there are vulnerabilities with this dependency. Hackers can steal data from government and corporations and hold them to ransom as happened to the Irish Health System and previously to the UK National Health Service (NHS), affecting thousands of patients.
The internet has replaced landline telephone by and large with the smart phone. There 5.7 billion mobile phones in the world today. Movies are being transmitted by live streaming; television will soon follow.
It all began when computer scientists sought ways to connect computers so they could communicate with each other over phone lines. It was in the 1970s when scientists Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf developed a way for computers to interface and connect through their invention of the Transmission Control Protocol an d Internet Protocol or TCP/IP.
In 1983, this technology was adopted by an existing but ineffective computer network system called Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET).The TCP/IP protocol transformed it to an effective workable communications network.
Then other computer networks were developed and all joined together to form the internet, a global communication network of computers. This enabled the growth of web pages where all kinds of informational content is available, known as the World Wide Web or The Web.
A browser or search tool on a computer connected to the Internet can find any information. The content can be good or bad.
Another source of abuse is live streaming of illegal images and spreading hate speech, misinformation, and harassing people.
The liability of the companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google that enable the posting or accessing of information on their social media platforms is governed by a Provision of the US Communication Decency Act Section 230. It says, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”
This means the internet-based platforms cannot be held liable for anything posted on their pages or platforms. They are not publishers like a newspaper.
They can allow all kinds of information, statements, articles, news videos and images to be posted there as an exercise of freedom of speech and they are not liable for the content.
They make money by gathering the personal data of the people who use their platforms and sell it to advertisers. However, they are not allowed to invade privacy or allow hate speech or inflammatory racist posts or child abuse images. (To be continued)/PN
