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I think it’s amazing, tbqh. I think that Anonymous embodies everything the power of the internet can be and turns it into a weapon for defending free speech, which is, at the end of the day, censorship of anything on the web is aiming to destroy.
Consider this: we are the first generation to truly have been raised in a digital world. For most of us, there is nothing scary or confusing or uncomfortable about sitting down in front of a computer and googling something or just making our way around the internet. Our view and our impact aren’t limited to our local community or area - thanks to the internet, our social circles and our perspective is worldwide. Have you ever spoken to someone you’ve never met, who lives half a world away? That’s the power of the internet: a global communication system that lets you connect instantly to people whose experiences and lives are drastically different to yours.
In the 1450’s, the Gutenberg press was created, and it changed the world because for the first time ever, widespread populations were learning to read and to understand, and began interpreting the Bible for themselves instead of listening to the church. This lead to schisms in Christianity that are still fought over today - all because the masses, for the first time, had the change to become informed for themselves. Do you know what the Internet gives us? It gives us knowledge, and that will get you further than anything else in the world. God, how could you not want to know? How could you not want to be on the web everyday, learning and understanding? Everything is accesible to you at the click of a button, and that’s not only revolutionary, it’s neccessary.
People should not be censored by their governments. They should be given the choice and the opportunity to educate themselves, and the internet gives them that chance. People should be able to choose what media they’re going to consume, and when, and how; and not feel ostracised because of their geographic location, because the internet eliminates that factor. Internet users know this. File sharing sites know this. For some reason, governments and corporate businesses seem to have missed the message.
The fact remains that the entertainment industry is centered on the United States, and the rest of the world is secondary to that. In most countries there is no Netflix or direct streaming of television shows (and where they are present the shows usually have a delay by one or two seasons from when they air in America), and the shows that air are a limited and controlled sampling of the full scope. There is no fast, cheap and reliable way to download or stream these shows from websites or programs (attempting to stream from sites like ABC or Hulu outside of the US ends with a “this video is not available in your country” notice) - if you are not in the US, there is basically nothing for you. Unless, of course, you torrent or download - the companies who own television shows don’t think they’re going to make a profit in your country, so you’d probably never get to see them otherwise.
Basically, the entertainment industry is constantly and repeatedly telling me that my worth as a consumer is less than an American because I am not as geographically desirable. Even on the internet - which transcends national boundaries - I am not allowed to view things because I am not an American. Do you know what I think about that? I think it’s bullshit.
I think that everyone, everywhere is an equal consumer. I think that we should all be given the choice to engage with media, to educate ourselves, to learn and experience what the world has to offer us. I think that the government won’t let me do that, and corporate industry doesn’t want me to do that, and that the internet is quite possibly one of the only places in the world where free speech is given free reign, and that’s beautiful.
We don’t vote in entertainment companies or business CEO’s, and yet they decide what we hear, what we see, what’s good for us and what isn’t. We don’t decide what ads we see or how people are represented in them; we aren’t given a say in the fact that the make up industries of the world make a profit out of attempting to keep women in a state of shame over their own bodies, or that people of color and non-heterosexuals and those who do not adhere to the gender binary are barely represented at all in any media. I think that all these groups - that all groups, everywhere - have an opportunity to gather and connect and learn on the internet. And I think the fact that governments and industries want to stamp that out so they can keep the public in a state of ignorance and isolation is despicable.
Anonymous stands for people who have gotten used to free speech, and who don’t want to give it up. And when you think about it, it is all of us - do you know anyone who is a member on an online forum? Who uses wikipedia, who reads news sites or who googles words when they don’t know how to spell them properly? It’s the entire world - the whole goddamn world! - right at your fingertips, and the scariest thing about that is that our generation is going to be the first generation of informed, mobilised global citizens, who know that we are powerful, and that we’re not alone. That is what Anonymous is. The hackers and activists who take down sites and protest are people who have grown up on the internet, too, and most likely learned their skills through it: they are weapons of free speech. Now there’s something to think on.
I’ll sum this up real simple: the internet is our Library of Alexandria. And if there was some way, any way, that I could help stop the Romans from burning that fucker down? Well then you’d better throw a Guy Fawkes mask over this way and call me anonymous too.
(via coatofprimer)
The newspaper headline screams: “Eighteen-Year-Old Slain by Husband after Giving Birth.” As you continue reading, you learn that the young woman was brainwashed by a strange blood-drinking cult who call themselves a “family,” though none of the members were actually related. The young woman’s husband was much older than she and had a history of violence. In fact, you learn that her husband used to stalk her prior to her marriage, watching her secretly from the woods near her home and climbing into an unsecured window at night to watch her sleep without her knowledge. Once the young woman, then seventeen, was initiated into a relationship with the man and his “family,” she was encouraged to marry right after her high school graduation. The young woman reportedly had bruises all over her body after returning from her honeymoon, where she also reportedly became pregnant. Her husband was not happy about the pregnancy and wanted her to have an abortion. She refused, eventually leading to him ripping the child from her womb, then, draining her of her blood until she finally stopped breathing. Sounds torturous and sick, doesn’t it? But in fact, this is the basis of a tween-teen literary phenomenon called the Twilight saga…
— Twilight and Philosophy, p.178 (chapter by Rebecca Housel)
(via bookriot)
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CREEPY JANE AUSTEN INTERNET PEOPLE: has anyone ever found this book? I saw a reference to it once when I was doing academic research back in college and I can never find it.
(that cover image, btw, is Charlotte Lucas roleplaying as Lady Catherine DeBourgh with her husband Mr Collins. Yow.)
(via theotherausten)
During the first five months of last year, a platoon of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan went on a shooting spree, killing at least four unarmed civilians and mutilating several of the corpses. The “kill team” – members of the 5th Stryker Brigade stationed near Kandahar – took scores of photos chronicling their kills and their time in Afghanistan. Even before the war crimes became public, the Pentagon went to extraordinary measures to suppress the photos, launching a massive effort to find every file and pull the pictures out of circulation before they could touch off a scandal on the scale of Abu Ghraib.
The images – more than 150 of which have been obtained by Rolling Stone – portray a front-line culture among U.S. troops in which killing innocent civilians is seen as a cause for celebration.
(via softwhisper)
Norway’s Prime Minister is a liberal atheist, they have one of the best economies in the world, they have universal health care, and subsidized education, it has had the highest Human Development Index 7 years in a row, and it’s never started a pointless war, given tax breaks to the richest, and created Jersey Shore — yet it’s America that knows best.
— Matthew Trevithick, responding to this story, “Former Bush Official Places Blame For Oslo Attack On Norwegians For Not Being ‘Serious’ About Terrorism,” with a comment that wins the universe. (via cognitivedissonance)
(via softwhisper)
In the safest, most boring country, the worst lone gunman shooting happens. The worst in the world, in history. But it will not make our country worse. The safe, boring democracy will supply him with a defense lawyer as is his right. He will not get more than 21 years in prison as is the maximum extent of the law. Our democracy does not allow for enough punishment to satisfy my need for revenge, as is its intention. We will not become worse, we will be better. We lived in a land where this is possible, even easy. And we will keep living in a land where this is possible, even easy. We are open, we are free and we are together. We are vulnerable by choice. And we will keep on like that, that’s how we want to live. We will not be worse because of the worst. We must be good because of the best.
— Ola (via youmightfindyourself)
(via jenniferehle)
U GUISE THIS IS SO SAD :’(
This is what an abortion looks like at 10 weeks. They removed the baby with rusty knives and just left it in a train station to die. Pro-“choice” people don’t care that this baby could have saved the world. Who knows what it might have become? A doctor? A lawyer? We’ll never know, because ABORTION.
FUCK SOMEONE BEAT ME TO THIS.
the minute i saw this i screamed at my friend (in the theater at the midnight showing. yes, i got punched by a stranger for it.) “HOLY FUCK IT’S AN ABORTED FETUS”
and god damn it i’m so sad i didn’t get to a computer before you
(via fl0ating-in-space)
