People Want To Blame Anyone Else For Any Illegal Activity They Do Online
from the blame...-the-government!--the-users!--the-ISPs! dept
It's already been well established in this "me first" society that no one takes responsibilities for their own illegal actions. For example, just a few weeks ago, we wrote about the student who was suing his university for kicking him out for plagiarizing. He admitted he cheated, but felt it was the university's job to have caught him earlier. This same logic seems to be catching on with any number of folks who post information online. A new study shows that many people feel that they should not be blamed if they put unlawful content online. While you can make reasonable arguments (depending on the circumstances) why they may not be liable, it's more interesting to look at who they do think should take the blame. 30% said the ISP should take the blame for not stopping the user from posting the illegal content. Another 15% blamed the government, who obviously has better things to do than running the country and, instead, should be policing online message boards to make sure no one posted false information. Finally, in the ultimate desperation move, 11% say that the blame should fall on those who accessed the content rather than themselves, the posters of the content. That would be a fun court argument: "Yes, your honor, I did post confidential corporate information publicly on a Yahoo message board - but no harm would have been done if no one had visited it! Thus, the blame, sadly, must fall on each and every visitor who caused the company trouble by looking at that content." Of course, with so many news articles claiming (incorrectly) that people are being sued for downloading (and not uploading) music files, perhaps we know where this line of thought comes from.
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Ah, the stupidity never ends...
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Blaming the receiver
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