I posted a comment today in a My Space blog. The blogger had been frustrated, not only by the poor service of a waitress, but also her derogatory comment at the slim tip she'd been left. Instead of confronting the waitress, in a calm and rational manner, she did what a lot of us do: left and felt irritated enough by the experience to blow off steam writing a blog about it.
It's easy to preach and harder to practice, and I admit I've done it much less in the past than I should have. It's hard to find the confidence to stand up and draw attention to yourself. Hard, too, when you're afraid your temper will get the better of you, and you'll descend to a level of screaming and swearing which will cheapen your stand and make you look bad. But I like to think I'm standing up for myself a bit more than I used to and I'll continue to worry less and less about what others think of me until I'm a crabby old lady who says whatever she thinks.
Unfortunately the Internet, with all the great services it provides and friendships between people who never would have met otherwise, opens the door to idiots and creeps also. Stalkers and Pedophiles and Hackers (oh my!).
The Internet allows cowardly, insecure people a degree of anonymity that gives them false courage. They don't use their internet savvy to create, only to tear down what others have created. I've heard graffiti praised as an art form. There are some people with artistic talent who have drawn beautiful pictures on ugly, tenement buildings or rotting fences with crumbling paint or concrete blocks. But that's not graffiti, guys, those are called murals. That is "art." "Rick + Lisa 4ever," "Jets Rule!!!!" and the F word -- no matter what colors you spray paint it in or how many curlicues you use or how psychedelic it looks -- is not art. It is garbage.
Hackers are graffiti garbage spewers. They enter sites, take out content, and replace it with garbage. They do it because it brings a feeling of power to an otherwise sad and unremarkable life. Sometimes they do it because they have a grudge against someone and they figure it's revenge. I suppose they consider themselves like Robin Hood or freedom fighters. They're striking a blow against their enemies, in the time honored tradition of might makes right. Are they any different, morally, than people who break into houses? Are they any different from any other form of bully?
Anyone who thinks it's a joke or no big deal would no doubt be outraged if they began finding things out of place in their house every night when they come home. Little bits of evidence that someone was there -- that someone has the power to get in and out of their house with impunity. Someone who didn't do any vandalism this time, but may later, if they so choose. Hacking doesn't have the danger of someone actually, physically threatening you, but that doesn't justify the bullying, that doesn't justify the small minds trying to make other people feel smaller than they.
These are people who are mentally ill. If they were only taking it out by hacking, maybe that would be a release valve and I could at least think that by hacking they were sparing those around them. But I have a feeling these are people who make life miserable both for those within the Internet and those around them. These are the people who probably trip nerds, feel up women and run, or use their cell phones to take pictures up women's skirts. These are women (and I'm sure that women are hacking in larger numbers as we learn more about the Internet) who make their parents, husbands, boyfriends, children miserable. These are people who spread malicious lies and gossip at work, who litter, who pee in communal pools, who pick their noses in public, who steal candy from babies. In other words (to end with a quote from Blazing Saddles)... assholes.
No comments:
Post a Comment