Using an iPhone in Ireland to connect to the Internet? Get your passport out. The legislature of Ireland, the Oireachtas Éireann, is exploring the topic of Internet safety and cyberbullying, and the possible need for legislation and regulation of online comments. It’s going about as well as you might imagine, with one senator, Eamonn Coghlan, suggesting that people should pay to post online. Coghlan has also suggested that Internet users use a passport to register their IP address.
According to this story in The Irish Examiner, Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte went on to suggest at the same meeting that American companies, such as Facebook and Twitter, should amend their terms of service to be more amenable to each country in which their service is accessible:
“These are reputable companies (and) major corporations. Good corporate citizenship should mean, it seems to me, that they should be prepared in the host country to enter into sensible protocols about take-down policy.”
Following the reaction on Twitter leads to such other gems as Senator Fidelma Healy Eames expressing concern about “Fraping, where you’re raped on Facebook.” She seems to be talking about people posting sexual messages on a Facebook page, or perhaps hacking someone else’s account. She goes on to express concern about things she’s “heard about recently,” like sexting and the “digital footprint.”
You can view her speech below:
Internet control resembles gun control. It has the same mindset–hassle everyone, particularly the law-abiding–in a clumsy effort to stop those with evil intentions who’ll simply ignore or bypass any laws.
Those who have evil in mind will find a way around these “Internet passports” and registering IP addresses makes little sense when people can access a dozen such addresses a day, many of them at public locales with open access.
All too many politicians are addicted to the idea of ‘doing something’ without the bother of knowing anything about a subject and without thinking about any potential complications.