I saw this article on Techdirt (http://techdirt.com/articles/20051007/082252_F.shtml)
"Last week, we noted that China had come out with new official rules for online news sites, saying that they could only report on news that was socially beneficial. It appears they're going beyond just news sites to personal communications as well, saying that mobile operators needs to start blocking socially "unhealthy" text messages. Apparently, these text messages have "polluted society and spread very bad influence." Sense a pattern here?"
Analysis? What is socially unhealthy? Even the term SPAM is contextual at best. An SMS offering me viagra is spam and not socially healthy IMO, however if the goal of a society is to survive, it demand procreation which in turn may be saved by viagra if some men have troubles with ... uhh .. you know what.
So what is socially unhealthy and what is not? How would you rate the following SMS's:
1. Asking you out for a date (same or opposite sex)?
2. Introducing a new band to you?
3. Advising you that some song by that band has been censored by your government?
4. An invitation to eat at McDonald's?
5. An invitation to do nude yoga poses while watching reruns of Baywatch?
6. An invitation to watch Pamela Anderson doing (nearly) nude yoga poses in Baywatch?
7. An SMS from Pam asking you if you want to go on a date, then do some naked Yoga poses?
8....
The point is that each of these may be healthy or unhealthy based on your own metrics. I would certainly presume that yoga is much healthier than eating at MacDonalds. No government should try to force ideals upon its citizens or censor their activities. I wonder why some of them still do?
Friday, October 07, 2005
1 comment:
Do not spam this blog! Google and Yahoo DO NOT follow comment links for SEO. If you post an unrelated link advertising a company or service, you will be reported immediately for spam and your link deleted within 30 minutes. If you want to sponsor a post, please let us know by reaching out to duane dot nickull at gmail dot com.
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Woohoo, first comment. I was just reading the MadPenguin interview with Gary Edwards where he says "Adobe has donated the services of their resident cosmic genius, Duane Nickull. Spend ten minutes with Duane and you'll know what I mean."
ReplyDeleteNice to see you're looking at the social implications of tech and not just tech for tech's sake. Thanks for your work on open standards, you've now you've got at least one incoming blog link.