Week in Review: Who should police the internet?

gallery

It's easy to forget that the internet is still very young compared to other forms of media and communication - such as print and video - and the whole idea of censorship is a very difficult area to tackle.

The web is large and essentially free to create anything, and policing it is almost an impossible job. It hasn’t stopped the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) from trying though. Earlier this week, somebody took offence to a 70’s album cover on Wikipedia which ended up with it being put on a blacklist. This led to the image, as well as the surrounding text around it, being blocked.

Common sense did prevail when it was later taken off the blacklist, but not before there were some serious questions about censorship. Some genuine users of Wikipedia were unable to edit content as a result, and it also asks questions about who has the rights and what the boundaries are when it comes to internet censorship.

I know LOL, OMG and sometimes I LUV U, but personally I’ve never been able to quite get into techno slang. But according to the Post Office, we are now entering the age of 21st century chat and we could be using terms like 404 (which means clueless), and 143 (which means I love you – geddit?)

Are Google working on its own operating system? Rumours concerning one have risen thanks to a metric firm’s claim that a large number of staff are hiding the operation system they are using. Rumours have long been made that that Google was developing one, and the release of the Chrome Browser showed many OS-like features. Microsoft might do well to be a little worried.

And finally IT PRO published its annual Christmas gadget round-up, which for a change has avoided all things Apple and gone for gadgets which are expertly tested as well as - considering the downturn – reasonably cheap. And also watch out for other Christmas and end-of-year round-ups and features which you will be able to read in the next couple of weeks.

Email to a friend

Print this page