LA LIBERTÉ GUIDANT LE PEUPLE, DE DELACROIX, LOUVRE MusuemProfessor of the São Carlos Behavioral Psychology Institute and specialized in Internet, psychotherapy and computer-mediated communication, Oliver Zancul Prado explains that the manner how the user interacts with the world becomes evident for two main reasons. First, in the network, things are recorded. That is, if someone in a casual encounter in a bar says that he or she is 32 years old, and in actual fact is 35, that does not appear or have any greater repercussions, since it is considered merely a lie.” By the computer, what is said or published is recorded, and it is possible to check it and read it once again.
The second reason, the main one, is the fact that communication takes place at a distance, the speaker is physically far from the listener. The implication is that the consequences of what is said will not necessarily the same as if they had been face to face. “For this reason, it becomes easier to invent or to manipulate information and characteristics without any significant consequence being perceived in the short term.” Prado also points out that the creation of personages is something that has always been incorporated into human life. Before, though, it was restricted to the theater and to artistic works. Now this is done in the day-to-day by the computer. “There is nothing abnormal in this, it could be considered a pathology if a person had tangible losses in his or her life as a consequence of such behavior.”
Prado suggests separating things. Users do indeed need to avoid criminal behavior on the Internet. It is also necessary for them to reflect on the type of information that they leave about themselves. “There is a whole context that involves the loss and devaluation of privacy that must be considered.” Different is to have excessive fear or to consider that the Web is a place for people who are psychotic, somber or malign and that one must not get to know, communicate with or get involved with people via the Internet. “That would be one more groundless fear, since people who are psychotic, somber or malign are living in our society and can be found outside the Internet as well.”
The psychologists recognize the dilemma that involves the privacy and control of the Internet. They recall, though , that if criminals plan crimes or pedophiles exchange photos via the Internet with ease, the police has more and more mechanisms for locating them, since many of these crimes are recorded, with the author. “The question is too complex to be thought out without a greater discussion and reflection, without thinking of the social and future implications” Prado reckons.
For the time being, it is just a question of serious crime, but what about copies of music? And when it is a question of opinions, criticisms or ideological crimes, or the privacy of public figures? For him, to analyze this from the point of view of personality or of censorship is to see the problem in a very simplistic way and not to take into consideration a diversity of implications of all this.
One opportunity for anyone who want to go into greater depth in the discussion will be the holding, on November 15 and 16 next, of the 3rd Brazilian Psychology and Information Technology Seminar (Psicoinfo), organized by the São Paulo Regional Psychology Council. Amongst other objectives, the forum intends to encourage the formation of groups, to organize psychologists that are working in the area, and to include professionals in technology who are doing work that has an interface with psychology, but who are not yet interacting with the psychologists. Papers will be presented by psychologists applied to information technology, services via the Internet, the use of information technology in professional practice, subjectivity and the impact of the Internet and of technology etc.
Law
In the juridical area, crimes of every sort on the Internet are today a challenge for the legislators, as they are for judges and lawyers. “Professionals from the juridical area still do not find themselves, in their majority, identified with the law and the new technologies. To be dynamic, the legislation needs agility from all the players from the most diverse fields” explains José Carlos de Araújo Almeida Filho, one of the country’s greatest authorities in the sector. President of the Brazilian Electronic Law Institute and professor in the ESA-SP (OAB) postgraduate course in information technology law, he is the author of the book Civil Liability of the Judge and Manual of Juridical Information Technology and Information Technology Law (Forense, 2005).
For him, there are crimes now typified as pedophilia and embezzlement that do not need a norm, because it is the modus operandi that changes. What changed was the object, the way of practicing it. “All the professionals involved must pay heed to the changes, from equipping the police to the magistracy, at the time of applying the sentence.” And he recommends that the topic of forensic investigation be well examined, under penalty of having crimes without any solution, or when they have a solution, running the risk of deficient denouncements and sentences without any effectiveness. “The law is ‘ready’ for the challenge. The question is knowing whether the operators also are.”
LA LIBERTÉ GUIDANT LE PEUPLE, DE DELACROIX, LOUVRE MusuemCrimes peculiar to information technology are few, such as the invasion of computers and the civil liability of the blogs and sites with journalistic information, since the legislation on the press cannot be applied in these cases. “Invasion isn’t a crime in our system, hence the sentences are blander. Congress should pay heed to these new modalities, establish express provisions in the text of the law on the denial of information in cases of crime.”
The slowness of the legislators to make adjustments is one of the obstacles for the Brazilian Judiciary. The electronic proceedings code has been going through the preparatory stages for over five years and has not, to date, even been to a plenary session for voting. There are several bills going through the submission procedures in the Congress, but there is excessive sluggishness. The deadlines are not observed. “The scientific community has to monitor the action of the Legislative branch in this regard. There are heaps of bills, as far as information technology and the law are concerned, but they haven’t been handled as they should be” warns the information technology law professor.
Doctor in law on the State and master in penal sciences Túlio Lima Vianna also believes that the law’s main challenges are the same old ones as ever. That is, the new technologies merely reflect the old dilemmas. “slander, defamation and abuse, for example, can be practiced by means of a printed newspaper, but also by an on-line newspaper. The Internet has changed the means, but the juridical structure continues to be the same.” Viana is the author of the book Foundations of Penal Information Technology Law (Forense, 2003), in which he gives the concept and classifies information technology offenses, criminological aspects of hackers and crackers, and analyzes the legislation of over ten countries, amongst other themes.
To modernize the law, he suggests, a group of jurists needs to be created to do a more technical preliminary draft than the one that is awaiting voting. He regrets that there is no political interest for this. As the Internet, for its very architecture, cannot be controlled, what can be done, he suggests, is to create difficulties for potential criminals. “But anyone who is ill intentioned can always seek refuge in an ISP in a country with less rigid legislation.”
On the other hand, the lawyer provokes, the Internet in general is far safer than the majority of big cities. “You have, though, to have the minimum of inherent precautions when making contact with unknown people. What you cannot have is paranoia. The cares with contacts by computer are the same one has when getting to know someone on the subway.
A series of negative facts connected with human behavior, it seems, hardly happen outside the Internet. Can this be the truth? Physical absence and the lack of voice contact and clearer indications about who the interlocutor is, and the difficulty of finding clues about the origin of messages and contents are helping to give grounds for this idea. Described as the most anarchic and freest form of manifestation created by man, the worldwide computer network was popularized partly because of the facility of communication and of the price of the service. Unlike other media – cinema, radio, television etc. ” however, it is not something finished. It reinvents itself every day, and its possibilities continue to be unquantifiable.
Several forms of relationships – personal, professional or commercial – are conducted via computer by a remarkable number of users – no fewer than 694 million in the whole world, according to a study by ComScore Networks published in June of this year. People’s vulnerability to being fooled, though, is still a problem used by the medium itself against itself. For this reason, it fascinates and startles. Physical and ideological frontiers constructed over the cause of thousands of years of civilization seem to have tumbled down in a flash. On the other hand, a world of ideas, images and information that literally opens up on the screen makes Internauts spend more and more time in front of the equipment and change their routine and way of communicating. For good and for ill. If talking to the neighbor was always a problem, the same does not happen over the network between someone who lives in São Paulo and someone in Paris or Tokyo.
Although the majority of the population uses the system in a healthy way, in some cases it becomes a police or behavioral problem. From what it seems, adolescents are the most vulnerable. Many begin serious courting or spend many hours in chat rooms that address subjects like sex and violence. Attitudes like that make the press bring discussions, complaints and denouncements. Many myths, much to-do, and, in a way, the “demonization” of the web arise. To what point, though, should parents, educators and the police be concerned?
At least three areas in particular seem to be more attracted to this debate: psychology, law and sociology, which is now studying the virtual communities. In psychology, it is not difficult to find professionals that are specializing in the theme. But lack of knowledge still predominates. And prejudice as well. In São Paulo, one of the pioneers in studying the Web is the Psychology and Information Technology Research Nucleus (NPPI), of the PUC-SP, founded in 1995, when the use of the Internet was still much restricted to the academic environments. The unit arose from the perception of the extremely agile and versatile nature that the interactivity favored by computerization could impart to the clinic / community dialog.
Rosa Maria Farah, one of the coordinators of the NPPI, observes that the Web does not make people have a standard deviation. “Perhaps a more adequate formulation for this question is why some people avail themselves of the Internet to reveal their more shady side.” The professor reminds us that the network, by itself and as a tool, is not capable of any action.” That is, it is not the web that reveals, but the individuals that, occasionally, show themselves through this medium. “In virtual space, it is the people that act and use the tools offered by the network, in accordance with the way that they are capable of: to express both their luminous aspects and the more somber ones.”
The psychologist explains that, from the viewpoint of analytic psychology, what differentiates one from the other is the way that each user deals with these less recognized aspects of personality, or again those held to be less “noble.” The Web can merely be perceived as a more or less adequate medium for the expression of their potentials, in this or that direction. In the case of illicit or illegal acts, both “anonymity” and the apparent impunity – conditions supposedly implicit to this browsing environment – could be just as stimulating as “a dark street” may be a stimulus for someone to turn into a robber.
The most frequent problems that psychologists, psychoanalysts or even psychiatrists have dealt with are the abusive uses of the network with different versions – chats, on-line games, virtual sex (experienced in an exclusive manner), invasion of privacy, and virtual infidelity. Amongst the cases that much called the attention of Rosa Maria are those that, over the network, reveal the latent difficulties in the relationships. Particularly in love relationships. These come to light from experiences and in the virtual world. “The Internet does not create ‘new’ problems of family relationship, but new ‘forms of expression’ for these problems or difficulties” she observes.
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