Is the Internet the wild west?

welome to fluther little jelly
Yes it most certainly is the wild west where everthing that you could ever want to know is available at your fingertips.. Unfortunately whatever you want to know is available at your fingertips.

That’s a good analogy, or maybe it is the last frontier like Star Trek. But isn’t most of life like the internet, it contains the best of the best and the worst of the worst, depending on the day. Most of the time though, it just is what I make of it.

No. The wild west was no place for cowards. The internet is paradise for cowards.

There seems to be more than a few Mongo types populating the t’internet. So yeah, your theory may have legs :¬)

The internet was the wild west but the turf is gradually being developed. Into what? Who knows? WHHOOOOAAAHAHAHAAA [evil laugh]

The internet used to be the Wild West, but if you think it still is then you must either be young or have been living under a rock. There are laws aplenty about what can/can’t happen on the ‘net. The misconception comes from the fact that no single nation actually controls what is a global thing.

Of course, we are still just leaving the infancy of the ‘net and entering awkward adolescence. People now accept the ‘net as part of daily life, some to the point of actually depending on it and going through DTs if their connection goes down. There are still some that are scared of it (often old farts) but it’s become mainstream enough that even many senior citizens are cruising around the information superhighway.

In that respect, the ‘net has matured, but the law still has no idea how to deal with a concept of a world without borders. Even now, many lawmakers see it as a series of tubes. We are being forced to rethink our notions of intellectual property, free speech, and (most importantly) jurisdiction. And since we are uncertain about these things, we are fearful of them, and thus of the Internet because it even raises these issues.

I believe that @rooeytoo is more correct in calling it a new frontier.

@jerv There are laws aplenty about what can/can’t happen on the ‘net. That may well be, but they cannot be and are not enforced. I have been trying for years to get some libelous statements about me taken off the internet.

The person involved was a former mental patient who served 5 years for stalking, and when she was released, filled the internet with baseless accusations against 100’s of people, which were later thrown out of court.

@YARNLADY As I said the law has yet to catch up completely with the way the world has changed since the introduction of electricity, so this internet thing still has them a little confused. That said, the recent cases of cyber-bullying may help a bit when it comes to making the laws evolve… but maybe not.

You see, when it comes to libel (cyber or otherwise) you often have to prove actual damages or else their venomous statements are nothing more than exercising their first amendment right to a viewpoint. In fact, most states do not even have laws that make defamation a crime, nor are there any such federal laws, but in general that is how it goes when/where it is a crime.

So tell me, how much money did you lose as a result of their accusations? And of that sum, how much can you prove was a direct result of their actions?

@jerv Point taken, but I want the content removed, I’m not interested in proving libel in a court of law.

Wow. Interesting question and point of view. I wish I could give you more than just 3 lurve for this one. But to answer your question, yes, I guess in a since it is.

@YARNLADY There is much that I would like removed too, sometimes for the same reason, but such is the price of living in a free society, and I find a little slander to be preferable to censorship.