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Technology dramas

By: Mark Tronson
Christian Today Australia Advisor
Thursday, 2 September 2010, 6:23 (EST)
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Modern ‘instant’ communications and the ability to contact hundreds of people (or more) at the click of a button is convenient for sending urgent messages, or even for Evangelists wanting to spread the Word of God.

However, like all good things, it can become ‘just too much’ and be burdensome – or even dangerous.

Recently, the pop idol, Justin Bieber, posted Kevin Kristopik’s telephone number on Twitter in a bid for revenge, after it was believed that Kristopik had hacked a friend’s website. The message included a request for the many recipients to phone this number.

Bieber, the 16-year-old singer, has over 4.5 million followers and the message was quickly re-tweeted by many of them before being taken down.
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/people/justin-bieber-tweets-enemys-phone-number-to-45-million-twitter-followers-20100817-1277e.html

Well, it might have hit the mark, but was it really an appropriate way to seek revenge?

The technology today is a little frightening when in an instant, a multiplicity of randoms (people) can be given any kind of information.

Like many Australians, a few years ago I became heartily sick and tired of receiving phone calls around dinner time from a person in a Call Centre is some far flung country, a long way off our shores, selling some product or new fangled land line or mobile telephone deal.

To curb this, the Government established a “Do Not Call Register” on which anyone could place their phone number, and huge fines were imposed upon anyone or organisation or business counteracting this law.

Some years ago now I found that my own email address had been sold on to other ‘providers’ and as a result, the vast number of unwanted messages in my in-box was beyond a joke. The ‘blocking mechanisms’ and filters at that time were not as efficient as those available today and in the end the issue became so overwhelming that I changed my email address.

Since then, Governments around the world have caught ring masters of unwanted email spam; although personal and ISP filters also need to be vigilantly maintained to stop these messages continually annoying us.

Will the same type of law need to be introduced for unwanted texts or messaging? How might an application such as Twitter be fenced-in to prevent this kind of hoon behaviour as illustrated in the story above?

Like all new technologies, this ‘mass messaging’ can be used for good or for subterfuge.

As Christians with an evangelist's heart who seek to use communication technology in all its formats to share the love and passion of Jesus Christ, we will need to be mindful about possibly intruding on people’s privacy in such a way that it leads to good.


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