Richard Matthew Stallman works on his own domain i.e. Stallman.org without using any so called social media sites like facebook or whatever.
Working on own domain not only keeps your works intact but creates some independent value upon world-wide-web which is not posible in case of working for any so-called social media site without even getting paid for it. Every other user is almost an unpaid worker upon social networks who frequently uncovers a part of his private self so that social media giants get gigantic value for free. That is certainly not freedom since all your information shared through user-friendly inteface of so-called social networks is more often than not shared with governments, who may not be that friendly with you.
RMS talks about other side of Internet which seems still dark and reminds us fully well that the dangers of 1984 by George Orwell were not averted by an Apple advertisement which proved lucrative enough to Steve Jobs but big brother may still be watching you when you live online.
Shardul Pandey: Whenever governments thought about doing any further evil to humanity by unnecessarily legislating Internet, what force actually forestalled that?
RMS: Political organization by citizens, with the support of some companies that would be hurt by these restrictions.
Shardul Pandey: Whether Internet monopolies proved good enough in SOPA and PIPA ?
RMS: Sorry, I don’t understand the question. Which monopolies is it about?
All monopolies in principle, or specific monopolies? If the latter, which ones?
Also, “good enough” in what way?
I am simply lost.
Shardul Pandey: If anything on Internet does a lot better than others it gets monopolized within no time as happened in the cases of Google, Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia also so what do you think where it is going likewise if they monopolize more and more strength of a particular kind day by day and how it will be affecting the freedom of netizens when recent World Conference on International Telecommunications 2012 (WCIT-12) held in Dubai has fully exposed upcoming conflict?
RMS: If the ITU gets control of the Internet, it is likely to encourage censorship and surveillance by governments. However, governments are imposing censorship and surveillance on the Internet even without the ITU. This danger is all around us. It is especially bad in India, where web sites can be shut down without a trial because they might offend someone.
Shardul Pandey: Internet is converting itself into largest ever marketplace without monopolizing any violence and free currency concepts such as bitcoin have also come up so what role at last would be left for states? Do you see a new world order emerging out of Internet Protocol that needs no artificial constitution?
RMS: I am not entirely certain what that question means. But I see that the Internet is turning into a scheme that gives people convenience in exchange for their freedom. Disservices such as Facebook invite people to share lots of personal information with a company that can make use of it, and hand it to the state as well.
Shardul Pandey: So what is your ultimate message to netizens ?
RMS: If you value freedom, you must fight for freedom. Sometimes that requires a sacrifice; those who are unwilling to sacrifice convenience for freedom will lose their freedom. This is how life is, so don’t be surprised that the Internet is this way too.
Shardul Pandey: That is the point as you made it explicit here that Internet has another side also that can get misused for enhancing all sorts of atrocities against individual freedom of human-being and if the fight for freedom is not taken personally without becoming an individual victim, humanity might further face a grave loss of freedom.
RMS: Do you want to ask follow-up questions? I expected you would, for the questions I could not understand.
Shardul Pandey: Obviously, I would like to ask.
On one side people have this tendency of easily giving away their freedom to have some convenience while on other side during SOPA and PIPA a conflict with government brought users and webmasters together to resist for freedom from government interference and thereafter death of Aaron Swartz made them more aware of this battle that has yet to be fought fully well.
Internet has become an overwhelming public rally where more than two billion people are arrived and more than five billion people are about to come so what strategy you suggest for thrusting all relevant contradictions ahead in to a full-fledged freedom struggle of this massive Internet?
RMS: The Internet is developing into a system for surveillance and censorship: a total betrayal of what we hoped it would be.
What most people do on the Internet nowadays is so disrespectful to freedom that I refuse to do it at all. Facebook. Advertising surveillance. Digital Restrictions Management. End-User License Agreements. From that side of the Internet, count me out!
Shardul Pandey: That is quite clear but many people worked on peer-to-peer technologies hoping that this could ultimately replace client-server architecture of Internet that is continuously invading domain of individual freedom demolishing social privacy of humankind.
Whether developing p2p structures is somehow worthwhile? Or anything else should become our focus for furthering technology from here? Technologically what next we should be doing for strengthening individual freedom and social privacy of humankind?
RMS: This is an important thing to do. If you want to help, I encourage your efforts. We hope that all Internet activities will be implemented in a peer-to-peer manner.
Shardul Pandey: Thank you very much Richard for making this point so explicitly clear. In a very systematic manner we shall be exploring entire probability for doing so. Your this interview is live and inspiring brightest upcoming programmers to take up this challenge of emancipating individual freedom and social privacy of humankind.
Those will sure be building a far secure future, who may lead humanity beyond Internet Protocol by developing an Inter-Personal Protocol facilitating peer-to-peer functioning of all devices without centrally registering anything at all. This can more easily be done by configuring a freedom course for kids-online to make them understand the value created by GPL along with learning peer-to-peer engineering. This will continuously bring in many more freedom fighters in technology.
Thank you very much for being around as our great teacher in the freedom struggle of humanity through and beyond this age of Internet.
RMS: Thank you for helping to spread the word.
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