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Thirty years on, it’s time to fix the Internet

By LAURIE PATTON | 18 March 2019

In the wake of horrendous events in New Zealand high profile Australian politicians are calling on social media outlets to take action against people spreading violent hate speech. They could start by banning anonymous posts.

Marking the World Wide Web’s 30th anniversary last week its creator, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, warned of the Internet’s unforeseen dysfunction, telling The Australian “there are a lot of people out there who believe in bizarre things, have fallen for atrocious conspiracy theories and are manipulated into scams”. Berners-Lee added, “This is not just about technology, there’s a people problem here as well”.

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#NoAnonymousSledging — time to clean up the Internet?

By LAURIE PATTON | 23 June 2018

It’s time we did something about the ‘keyboard cowards’ – especially those who post false and/or defamatory comments on social media.

To fail to do so will open the Internet up to moves by governments to interfere in ways that have been successfully opposed since its inception, on the basis of arguments about free speech and freedom from undue state interference in people’s lives.

It’s a complex issue, but the laws that have traditionally protected people from damaging defamatory comments must be extended to the online world or they might as well not exist!

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