I'm sick and tired of the hypocrisy that permeates the world of piracy. Most notably those that under the cover of technology news and information websites, allow themselves to treat the theme as a grand scheme of the evil big corporation against the innocent and good working class. Particularly Ars Technica, that since it was bought by Condé Nast Digital has seen its editorial line became an increasingly more aggressive supporter of online piracy. This used to be a website that I actually visited everyday for technology news. Unfortunately, it's treatment of piracy is but one of its problems these days.
A string of articles (and there's hardly a week for the past year that doesn't have one) constantly treats the theme. And in these articles, there's never an attempt to inform in the expected way of a news article. Every article, without exception, is editorialized to exhaustion.
The hypocrisy of condemning the ways lawyers have been finding to circumvent the law limitations to actually pursue and sue these pirates, while never condemning pirates abusing the law limitations in order to remain so far virtually untouched by the arm of justice is too much to bear.
Ars treatment on this matter has been so intense and constant, that there's actually members with nicknames evoking the concept of online piracy and debates where pirates participate openly admitting they do it and supporting it should be done. No different from starting a thread here suggesting we should go rob a liquor store.
I confess it frustrates me that these websites treat this issue with such irresponsibility. The lack of a deontological code (obligatory outside the web) for web journalists -- Heck! The lack of actual journalists in web news sites -- means, as a source for information, the web is not a place for everyone. Values, or the perception of those values may become quickly skewed by the rhetoric of those pretending to be a reputable source of information. Without guidance, without a proper environment at home that allows us to arm our kids with the proper filtering and analysis abilities, I fear the web is becoming increasingly more dangerous.
