IF YOU CAN'T STAND THE HEAT, GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN

  

    Tsk…because of an inevitable coverage somewhere in the South, I’ve wasted an opportunity to partake in Sir Beav’s discussion last Tuesday about ethics in media especially when he posed the question about celebrities: Are they entitled to have a private life when being a public figure is part of their job?

     Being in the entertainment beat for years, I have my own share of view about the question.

     Celebrities especially in entertainment are like creatures living in an aquarium where every move they are going to make is being magnified by their fans and the media. In a way, a life without privacy is already a part of their career they have chosen.

     Why? Because traditionally speaking, supporters have the right to know almost everything about their celebrity idols. Because these supporters are the ones who are following their idol’s projects, endorsements, reel and real partners, to the extent of fighting against another group of fans.

     And remember, these supporters are the ones who are paying and supporting their idol’s movie project which is the primary basis of the celebrity’s popularity.

    In the business of entertainment, popularity for every celebrity is like having a cash machine which keeps on ringing because of the series of huge talent fees they are getting.

    Fact is, there is an delusionary feeling for these supporters that they actually own these celebrities and in return, these celebrities owe them their private life.

    And for these reasons, when celebrities are complaining about privacies, we usually throw them the cliché: if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

    Simply put, if you want to live a simple private life, then get our of the entertainment world.

     There is also a question of sensationalism in entertainment press when giving interesting stories about celebrities.

      Remember the nip slip of Anne Curtis live on national TV? Because she is a popular personality in entertainment, the issue was sensationalized for approximately two weeks.

     Her supporters, mostly males, felt that their illusions were materialized by reading stories about Anne’s nip slip.

    If she is not a celebrity and the nip slip happened somewhere, then who gives a shot to feast on the story?

    This is one price the celebrity has to pay being in the entertainment world.

DELIGHTING YET INTERESTING DEBATE

   

     When was the last time I participated in a formal debate?

     Whoa…that was in my college days complete with the podium and all. Vox populi was the name of our three-man team with half of the university’s population watching.

      Then came the informal debate which was organized by Sir Beav last Tuesday in our class.

      There were two topics.

       First.The best approach to reduce the negative impact of the rapid evolution of media: External body or self regulation (we argued for the self regulationJ)

       Second. Is Western media really that powerful?

       I can describe the informal debate experience as fun, informative and refreshing.

       It was fun because we enjoyed our arguments. There were no losers and winners. There were no huge crowd. In fact, we were only nine students participating in the informal debate. There were laughter and applause.

       Informative.We learn as we justified our stand. We also gathered some good points from the other side of the argument.

       Refreshing because it stimulates our mind. We sort of brushed up our memories about the topics discussed. It was indeed a stimulating discussion.

       With the informal debate in our class, I just realized that arguments from both sides in a debate can be easily comprehended if done with Sir Beav’s informal style minus the serious and feisty faces of the traditional debaters extremely pushing for what they stand.

      Just a wishful thinking. If only debates can be done with fun and laughter, not in a monotonous manner, and yet with informative and intelligent arguments, then the discussion would be inspiring and interesting.

     

SORRY SIGHT ON CYBERCRIMES!

SORRY SIGHT ON CYBERCRIMES!

The lecture of sir Beav last Tuesday about the issues on digitization zeroing in on cybercrime struck me for a reason. I want to share an experience depicting cybercrime, as an activity which is already being operated widely in our country by people who are sick and insane.

I tried to wind back my memories when I used to work as a hands on publicist (read: tagging along with the raiding team) of Bitag Live of Ben Tulfo where the program exposes illegal activities including cybercrime like cybersex.

Yap! While most of the people indulge themselves with the satisfaction and the support new media brings, there are also some users, majority of them are minors, who are willing victims of cybersex because of economical reason: the need to survive in this material world where having money means power to buy.

I had a chance to have a personal experience in hitting a cybercrime when I tagged along with the raiding team busting a cybersex den where I saw girls whom I think were in their adolescence stage strutting it out in front of the computer camera and monitor, fully naked. It was indeed a very sorry sight considering that these little girls were supposed to be in the schools busy with their academic lessons or perhaps in the streets playing with their buddies.

The evolution of technology is so fast and our lawmakers are just starting to study and enact laws in connection with the rapid scattering of illegal activities in cyber space.

With our experience mentioned above and considering the development of technology with great speed , can we still control and regulate the almost absolute freedom that we are experiencing in using the new media especially on illegal activities? 

   That is one question which is also a move to call the attention of our authorities to act on these cybercrimes rapidly so we can spare our children to become victims of this kind of criminal act in cyber space.

  It is also worthy to note how the Republic of China secure their cyberspace by putting up the Great Firewall of China. 

   The Republic of China struck a deal with Google in 2006 to have a search engine that have launched as an official Internet Service Provider that has a self-censorship which protects illegal and unnecessary content to the consideration of the country.

    In the protection of their country’s national security and threats, even cyber terrorism, China decided to build architecture of censorship and information control that can challenge and empower technology since it have been seen that China is a source of spam mails and a hub for ICT development.

     The internet censorship in Mainland China started when various threats were made, hence, a technology was introduced which controls and monitors the internet traffic. It also filters the system and tends to block out specific information or sites but this kind of technology in China didn’t stop from there and as the new technology evolves so does their restrictions. 

       Now, can our local officials policing our cyberspace do the same thing and have the will power to control our own local cybercrimes?