Democratization of knowledge is open access to receive and send out information through the internet.
It has positive and negative effects. On the positive side, there is the podcast Radiolab Right to Be Forgotten about an online news organization that received emails from people whom they had posted stories about on their website. The people asked to have their names taken down due in part to the negative affects that the story had on their lives. It enables the creation of new job opportunities that are available to a wider range of people. For instance, makes it possible for people to express their personal opinion by blogging and make a living from it. It also makes it easier to get information out faster and this significantly helps with community safety. For instance, if there is cellphone footage of a shooter and it is uploaded to YouTube you would be able to identify the shooter. Black Lives Matter is a social movement that would not have happened without people having access to knowledge.
However, there are negative aspects of it as well. Such as people choosing to use social media to bully others while hiding behind anonymity. It allows creates the problem of viruses being sent through email and hacking computer information. Concerns about Invasion of privacy have been raised as a result of google maps. Because you can’t believe everything that you read online, it makes it important for you to make sure that you are getting your information from reliable sources. It also makes being online dangerous for kids because they haven’t yet learned that stranger danger applies online as well.
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