How Dare He?!?

Now I'm angry. I get that McCain doesn't do email, doesn't know what the internet is, probably thinks computers are still made out of vacuum tubes. But how dare he walk all over this institution, basically taking a dump on it and everyone who actually uses the world wide web and enjoys the opportunity to use it?

New policy from the McCain campaign: Spam the internet. He is paying his supporters with rewards points if they go on to websites, Democrat or Republican or neutral, and post McCain talking points. They don't identify themselves as with the campaign; they just post it under their own names. They don't put in their own views per se; they cut and paste from the campaign talking points. They don't post something germane to the article they are commenting on; they just post whatever they want. In all cases these are unethical practices, or rather, violations of netiquette. Yes, such a thing exists. It has existed from when the internet was first formed, back in the 1960s, long before there was a web. It has been built up over the years, but the basics have not changed. You do not spam. You do not troll. You do not pretend that you are an individual when you actually represent a corporation.

Why do we have these guidelines? After all, the beauty of the internet and it's subsidiary web is that there is no enforcement, so the guidelines aren't enforced. The internet is the purest form of anarchy ever invented, and inherently anti-corporation. It is individuals, not big government, or big business. We do this because we are a community, here on the world wide web, centered around one issue. We disagree on everything. Except that we like to use the web, and want to keep on using it. Anything that infringes with the free use of the web (like Google helping the Chinese censor the web) is frowned on, is considered the worst of violations. Spam hinders the web. Yes, people do it. Every society has its gutter scum, its riff-raff, its lowest of the low. And every time they do it, it makes it harder to use the internet. It slows down processing speed, but more than that, people don't like spam. They don't like hearing random expressions that have nothing to do with what they are looking at. They don't like to be taken advantage of. They don't like a company- or a campaign- coming along to pretend it is one thing when it is another. And since people don't have to be online, when they run into more and more of what they don't like, they come online less and less. And since the internet is anti-corporation but the epitome of cooperation, fewer people means far less enjoyment for us all.

The Straight Talk Express is now anything but. It is the equivalent of the Truth Division in 1984. It is encouraging people to pretend that their ideas came from themselves, instead of a campaign.

I welcome any Republican or Fascist to post here. Just two guidelines. Keep it civil. And make sure it's your own thoughts, and not a "ctrl c ctrl v" from a campaign. I get that McCain is more comfortable with telegraphs than with the internet. But don't you dare come and infringe on my right to enjoy the internet.