Erick Schonfield at TechCrunch has tonight seriously suggested that the United States should introduce a Digital Bill of Rights.
Lets look at the positives first: it’s brilliant link trolling. With TechCrunch having covered both Paris Hilton and Big Foot this month, the onward march towards page views at all costs has now passed all sanity in a post that is a brilliant example of how saying something so insanely stupid can be good for business. Maybe I should have written the post, it’s that stupidly evil, but thankfully any mild level of mental retardation left me approximately 4 months ago Sept 5.
Now lets look at the absurdity of what Erick is suggesting: that the United States should introduce the bill of rights filled with every hippy loving loons idea of utopia: it’s the machine man, the machine! Alone some of what Schonfield suggests is responsible in terms of law: free use of purchased media and an expectation to privacy immediately come to mind, but in an age where we are still arguing the merits of a US CTO, what little chance do these goals have of ever being enshrined into a bill of rights? Lets see: rank of importance to the general population…statistically close to zero. Great geek topics, but ones that would never pass mustard in a bill of rights. Instead of rightly calling for some of these points to be better addressed in law, Schonfield takes the Moses parting the sea approach of grandiose delusion.
I’m even going so far as to suggest that Schonfields call is counter intuitive to the cause. The only hope we have of an improved approach is to sell these ideas through a moderate approach, not one of extremism. Still, good link bait Erick, you’ve finally sold your journalistic ethics out, so a 9.5 on the triple back flip from me.
See also Mark Rizzn Hopkins and Steve Hodson.
