I’m hardly surprised at the UK’s rating; Britain is small, wracked by internal conflict and also makes much of the worlds surveillance equipment anyway…
Also the control of the Internet has been wrestled away from the smaller, more anarchic “dot-com” type organisations and now rests with big telcos and big governments.
The Chinese have shown it is possible to both censore the internet and to monitor it closely; despite communicating in one of the Worlds most complex languages..
Reality TV culture doesn’t help either.. people enjoy monitoring and judging each other
worst of all (perhaps because of reality TV) I don’t think a lot of younger people value their privacy or realise the implications of the way the internet is monitored….
using the internet is like being on police interview constantly. Everything is being recorded and may be used against you….
It doesn’t happen as much in the UK (yet) – more a US thing but I’ve read many reports of lots of people being refused entry to college or being turned down to job interviews as they have talked about crime, drugs, sex on their myspace or other forums and something on their CV has linked them to their on-line “image”…
although there is still “free speech” its becoming like personal debt, you may end up paying for it dearly at a later date…
incidentally “privacy” need not be about being a hermit, but more choosing who you wish to share information with….
