10 points??!?! The internet represents a new frontier in the struggle for human rights?

[Anita]

I have to write an argumentative text based on this but I have NO idea what to say!! I don't even understand what it means! Is it asking about how technology affects human rights? And if it is how???
Oh and it only has to be 200 words Its just a practice one but my teacher is still collecting it

[dawn]

Yes! Arab Spring was driven by internet communication. Dissidents in despotic regimes get their messages out by the internet.

You can tell it's important by the way repressive governments censor it. China has tight controls because of dissident activity. Syria shut down the internet yesterday -- totally shut it down (and people are wondering how they did that) -- because the regime is losing the war against the people who want freedom.

On another front, if a gay kid in Nebraska feels all alone in his small town, he can connect with a kid in Alabama that feels the same.

I think there is a rich vein of information on this all over the Internet, and it will be an interesting paper to write.

[Math Wiz Needed]

The internet stands as a new frontier in the struggle for human rights. As more and more people in America begin to own computers and more school begin to make it much more accessible for student to do so, the struggle of human rights can easily reach millions of people with the press of a button. Not only this, but we can always keep in contact with what is happening in this world concerning human rights via the internet. The internet has become a major source for information, so the it's easy to see how the correlation between internet and human rights (internet makes information easier to get in other words, easier to educate millions and millions of people as you can just send one message). Like Facebook for example, the "Causes" pages have many likes and many of them are for human rights. It makes information worldwide rather than just available at a parade or in school.

Well hope that helps. Not sure how much you have to right, but that's a good start.

[Elle]

This means that the internet is affecting the way that people are beginning to look at human rights. Because everything on the internet is virtual, it can affect human rights in many positive AND negative ways. There are two main ways that the internet has changed human rights: 1.) it allows people to do things that they would never normally do in person, like curse at someone on twitter, or create a facebook hate group about your enemy. 2.) the cyber world is something that is hard to control, and it is impossible to make sure that no one is breaking laws on the internet, such as downloading movies for free or sending threatening e-mails. There IS internet censorship in the U.S. (they have blocked several free movie and music download sites), but the U.S. would never be able to completely shut down the Internet, because they would have to pay out money to companies such as Google, Facebook, etc., AND they would be violating every U.S. citizen's rights to freedom of speech and expression.

The problem is that it is much harder to punish someone for something that they have done online than it is to punish someone for something that they actually did in reality. For example, there have been several cases of teenagers cyber-bullying other teens online, and some victims have actually committed suicide. However, those people might not always be able to be charged in court for harassment, especially if the conversations took place on Facebook Chat or IM, because live chats aren't recorded, and there aren't actually any precise laws on the range and context of different types of cyber harassment. BUT, if those people were saying and doing the same terrible things to someone at school in front of witnesses, then they would definitely get charged in court with harassment, and they would also most likely get suspended, and possibly sued as well. People feel as if they have a little bit of extra "safety" when they are online, because no one can see them or hear them. This causes people to be a lot more brave than they would normally be in person, and this can cause people to act in mean and deceitful ways. The victims of cyber-bullies are definitely struggling for their human rights because the people doing it to them are not always held accountable, as they would be if the same thing happened in person.

I hope this helped, and at least gave you some ideas and a starting point for your essay! : )