What happened when everyone speaks up and writes about the things they believe in? Would that make them the author of the work? And how are those work being shared in the 21st century world?
In the past, writing about your belief or the cause you stand for may strictly be confined in a journal or notebook that might not be disclosed. Sometimes, if they wanted everyone to acknowledge what they speak or write, they would publish those work in a form of book or turn it in to the newspaper. However, nowadays, reaching out to the public about your idea or belief, takes only a minute thanks to technology. Social media like Instagram or twitter receive a lot of popularity among people todays, and those are the place where stuff is written and shared. Before, in order to write a paper or academic article, you have to be a high educated person, people or organization of influence/credibility; however, with technology nowadays, everyone can be an author, and everyone can write and publish.
If you have a belief, or new knowledge you want to share, all it takes is a few minutes to write in your Facebook status, or even better, create a WordPress website for free. People are writing and creating knowledge every waking hour, and thanks to that, everyone can find answers to their questions all over the internet. I suppose that’s what I am doing too, trying to create something new that I think might benefit or at least try to answer people’s questions. I am talking about my digital humanity project.
I am thankful that people are creating new contents and digital tools on the internet and made it available for everyone. There are things I read on the internet that are very useful for class and my everyday life. There are also contents, photos, and other material that are made free to use (in public domain), and it has been really helpful for my own educational projects. For example, the photos from the government and archives from newspaper. WordPress and many other hosting sites are made free for users, easy to use, and even are regularly updated. All these availabilities made it possible for more people to go online, and start creating new things, hopefully in a way that can be shared.
However, even though I support the idea that people share their knowledge and voice freely on the internet, I am also concern about the spread of false knowledge and fake news that has been circling the society. As the notion of sharing become widespread, it’s easy for people to confuse what right and wrong, and unintentionally incite society. That’s when the credential and copyrights of institutions comes in to play because different organization give its credibility. Knowledge sharing is important, but so is its credibility, and that is why I believe the institution should control their credential, unless the sharing is for the public good and for education purposed.
