[LINK] NetAlert Campaign 'truth' finally coming out

Stilgherrian stil at stilgherrian.com
Sat Dec 15 10:59:44 AEDT 2007


On 15/12/07 9:40 AM, "Ivan Trundle" <ivan at itrundle.com> wrote:
> As a parent of offspring who use the net extensively, I am aware of
> the significance of a 'friend of a friend' - which is simply a
> euphemism for 'someone I don't know'. In every sense, they are a
> 'stranger', and in the IM world, a friend of a friend is not at all
> equivalent to someone you might, say, meet at a party by way of a
> friend's introduction.

While this is a valid concern, whether you're a parent or not, the duplicity
of Coonan's statement is the conflation of "someone you haven't met before"
with "stranger" with "danger". The pre-existing alliterative "stranger
danger" meme made it even easier for the (previous) government to continue
their campaign of fear.

If someone's mind already includes "stranger danger", and you use loose
terminology to say that anyone you haven't met in "real life" before (as if
people become non-real when your communication is electronic?) is a
"stranger", then instead of the perfectly reasonable "half of the kids have
met a new friend online" you suddenly have "half of the kids have been
approached by a dangerous paedophile". Hardly the same thing.

Even in "real life", we meed "strangers" all the time. That conversation we
strike up at the bus stop, in the theatre queue or at the pub. And you know
what? The vast majority of these "strangers" are fellow ordinary citizens
going about their business of living in fear of the vast hordes of
paedophiles and terrorists and queue-jumpers and union thugs who threaten to
bring civilization to its end any moment now.

How many of us met a "stranger" last week? I'd wager that it was more than
half of us!

Stil


-- 
Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com/
Internet, IT and Media Consulting, Sydney, Australia
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