Fear and Laughter, how the internet is slowly devolving

Unless you’ve not yet got any sort of television or the internet, you’ve most likely heard of the current leaks happening on the internet. If you haven’t, then let me give you a very short explanation. A large amount of photos and videos, saved to the Apple iCloud and now Snapchat have been leaked on the internet, showing how unsafe the internet really is. I’m not here to say that it’s the people taking these photos who are at fault here, even though it’s not a great idea to trust random companies with your private photos.  The companies aren’t being blamed for this happening, as although they’ve been shown by most major news sites, it’s usually the fault of the “Hackers” that do it, instead of the company, which just breeds an aura of “There was nothing we could do about these leaks” and “We’re fixing it now that it’s happened”.

And before you say it’s a one off thing, this has been happening for a while now, and it’s slowly devolving the internet. For example, only after the credit card numbers and numerous private information got leaked from PlayStation a couple of years ago, was it found that PlayStation did not actually encrypt any of the numbers, along with the NSA leaks, where it was found that the United States government along with many others are spying on its own people, being given access to pictures, phone calls, internet history, pretty much anything that they wanted. And yet there was barely any outrage from people, as the internet seems to be for most politicians and world leaders a joke. I mean think about what happened when it was found that the white house was monitoring just its opponents! Surely the whole world should be a little more important?

But no, as the internet today is just seen as something that can’t be taken seriously at these moments. For politicians, the internet is just a tool that needs to be supressed, and with events like the leaks happening, it’s making people a lot more likely to agree with the government, as by disagreeing to not censor, you are seen as the same as the people leaking pictures and videos, the internet being put into one big bubble. But people don’t care, as currently, and rightly so, the only crackdowns made are for those doing illegal activities. But governments want more power over the internet, and people don’t care about giving them it, as it “Doesn’t affect them.”

The government won’t do anything while the majority care about the internet being censored. But luckily for them, it seems a lot of voters don’t care what happens. And that’s what will break our freedom of speech, not some totalitarian censorship or sneaky NSA spies arresting random people.

It will break from people not caring.

By Damian Bemben
Columnist

#dontpanicbutton

By Kyra Balderstone

Today in aid of World mental health day, I sported my red button in aid of anxiety. Anxiety is a feeling of worry and nervousness for fears and just panicking in general. Believe it or not, 1 in 6 people experience anxiety at least once in their life. There are many different symptoms of anxiety which can include:

·         Feeling frightened, nervous or panicky all the time

·         Feeling down or depressed

·         Having difficulties sleeping and eating

·         Difficulty to concentrate on things

·         Feeling tired and irritable

·         The racing of your heart

·         A dry mouth, trembling

·         Faintness

·         Stomach cramps

·         Diarrhoea

This campaign was originally made by beauty blogger and Youtuber Zoella (a.k.a Zoe Sugg) because she is the new ambassador of mental health. Zoe herself suffers from quite severe anxiety and panic attacks and likes to raise awareness by posting videos on her channel and writing passages on her blog.

Zoe told her viewers on her daily vlog to wear a red button if you suffered from anxiety or knew someone who did, take a picture and upload it onto social media with the hashtag: #dontpanicbutton

The red buttons symbolize solidarity and also to help raise awareness of mental health issues. The symbol is a red button because a red button is normally considered a symbol of emergency and panic like a fire alarm or an emergency button in a lift. So to try and raise awareness Zoe and the mental health charity Mind took the button and have adapted its meaning.

I sported my button today, did you? Will you be inspired and raise awareness?

Pluto set to return as a planet?

By Virginia Mitreva

There were once nine planets however back in 2006 the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of its status by saying it was too small to ‘pack sufficient gravitational punch’. Pluto is now known as a ‘dwarf planet’ leaving eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Pluto was originally kicked out because it did not ‘meet the criteria’ set up by the International Astronomical Union (AUI). Indeed Pluto doesn’t meet the criteria because it is small and has a radius of around 750 miles, which is less than 20 per cent of the Earth’s radius and its circumference is about 4,500 miles (this makes it smaller than our moon).

However not everyone agreed with the decision and the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics released a statement saying “a dwarf fruit tree is still a small fruit tree, and a dwarf hamster is still a small hamster.” Furthermore the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre held a debate and let the audience decide if Pluto was a planet and the audience decided that Pluto is in fact a planet by a 2-1 vote.

There is no definite answer that Pluto will return to its previous status as a planet. But there is hope due to the fact that in 2015 a spacecraft called New Horizons will be launched, the first ever spacecraft to be sent to Pluto and should arrive at the ‘dwarf-planet’ by July of the same year. New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern, believes that Pluto is a planet. “I think the public is better suited to this than astronomers, at least,” Stern continued to say, “The IAU should never have pretended to have the expertise to enter into this debate. It’s a matter for planetary scientists, not astronomers.”

Do you think Pluto should be defined as a planet?