In October 2005, in Spain, the first Internet Day was celebrated at the initiative of the Association of Internet Users (aui.es). In that first edition, 534 events were organized throughout Spain and more than 200 public and private entities signed the Declaration of Principles to build the Information Society. In November 2005, the World Summit on the Information Society asked the United Nations General Assembly to declare May 17 as World Information Society Day to promote the importance of ICTs and the various issues related to the Information Society raised at said summit. The General Assembly then proclaimed May 17 as World Information Society Day every year.
But why celebrate an Internet Day? According to the website http://www.diadeinternet.org/ Internet Day “is a network project that arises from society, by society and for society. It is open to free and voluntary participation by all. The event aims to publicize the possibilities of new technologies to improve the standard of living of towns and their citizens”. The importance of connecting to the Internet in our daily lives is undeniable, both personally and professionally, and it is up to each one of us that its use is more positive than negative.
“One of the key aspects of Internet Day is the freedom of each group to decide what it does, how it does it and to whom it directs its actions. Everyone can decide their degree of involvement and everyone is given the same importance. Internet Day provides an opportunity to promote and promote access to the Information Society for the unconnected and disabled. In addition, it takes advantage of the experience acquired in Spain to promote the celebration of Internet Day in other countries”. They all sound like a very good wish, although some facts about reality are, to say the least, chilling.
For example, in a note published today in the newspaper La República, a study carried out by the company Kaspersky Lab is mentioned, according to which, every day there are 160,000 attempts to access pages of pornographic content by minors. Likewise, it is proven that a large percentage of the encyclopedic information published on the Internet suffers from serious historiographical errors, thus becoming a huge source of misinformation, which distorts its origin and primary objective.
In article 121 of the conclusions document of the World Summit on the Information Society it is stated that:“It is necessary to contribute to a better understanding of the Internet so that it becomes a a global resource truly accessible to the public. On May 17, World Information Society Day will be celebrated annually and will serve to better publicize the importance of this global resource, especially the possibilities that ICTs can offer to societies and economies, and the different ways to bridge the digital divide.”
But perhaps more important than the need to extend its use, is the pending work of raising awareness among the different social actors so that the Internet and its unlimited possibilities of breaking borders, both such as removing limits for the filter of what can be published and what cannot, are not used in an unscrupulous manner. One of the main reflections regarding our modern world, which lives permanently connected to the Internet, is the absence of legislation and regulations that allow us to control, not to mention access, which by nature is open and unrestricted, but the quality and intention of that that is published.
It is true that the Internet is currently essential for any activity:from personal communications, through email, to the sophisticated data processing programs that make millions of companies run In the entire world, there is no way to conceive of the world without connections, computers and networks. However, this excess of dependency can ultimately be harmful because it shortens our capacity for action and reaction in cases where these, for various reasons, fall.
Internet Day should therefore be a date that stimulates reflection and understanding of the various dimensions that the network of networks has adopted in the last 20 or 25 years:as a means of information on a global scale, personal communication, knowledge and entertainment.
In this link we leave you some notes and curious data about the Internet:
20 things you don't know about the Internet