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OPINIONS.

 

A little twerk never hurt nobody

let the people dance

Sharon Miki, Senior Columnist

| igh schools are a breeding
ground of terribleness: kids

hurt each other—physically and
emotionally—with increasingly
violent bullying; it’s not unusual
for high school students to
commit crimes ranging from
petty theft to serious criminal
infractions; sexual abuse and
date rape also occur amongst
teens. Despite it all, one thing that
teenagers do that can never really
be terrible (well, I mean, they can
do it poorly, but not like, morally
terrible) is dance, even if their
move of choice is twerking.

The Internet is all atwitter
after a Southern California
high school issued a ban on the
Miley-approved butt-bouncing
dance move, with many
people applauding the school’s
prohibition of what they view as
a sexually suggestive dance. In
my opinion, this is a reactionary
and unjust decision that will
have little effect on students’
sexual connections to each other,
but might lead to a lot of weird,
closeted danced parties.

Sure, twerking is by
definition a dance move that
highlights a typically sexualized
part of the human anatomy
(i.e. the butt). However, also by
definition, all forms of dancing
include some sort of body
movement. The body is (almost)
always involved in sexual
activity, so should we ban ballet

recitals because the dancers use
their bodies? Twerking might

be suggestive to some, but
disallowing teens from moving
their body in one direction is not

going to stop them from knowing

about or wanting sex.
Regardless of how you feel

about the particular mechanics of

twerking, I would argue that it’s
a less complicated form of sexual
expression than having actual
sex. Teenagers have been having
intercourse long before the Ying
Yang Twins suggested in 2001 to
“Whistle While You Twurk,” and
they will be having sex with each

other long after Miley grows tired

of co-opting ratchet culture.
Since I presume that the
kids are wearing clothes while
they dance on school grounds,
it’s unlikely that anyone’s going
to contract a STI or conceive
an unplanned pregnancy from
twerking at a school dance. If
the administration is so worried

about the teens’ sexual awareness,

then perhaps they should focus
their energy on teaching safe sex
practices and sexual education
to students instead of banning a
dance move like they’re cartoon
villains.

Just like you can’t tell me not

to move my right arm up and
down (some have told me that I
have a very alluring wave), you

can’t tell kids how they should or
should not dance. Autonomy over

what to do with one’s own body
should be a basic human right—
even if they want to bounce it

around in a sort of ridiculous way.

Twerk on, kids. Twerk on.

 

Miley Cyrus Twerking | Screenshot via Youtube

 

Will search engine
censorship track
criminals or create them?

Elliot
Chan
Opinions Editor

opinions@theotherpress.ca

 

he three titans of the
Internet, Google,
Microsoft Bing, and Yahoo!,
are developing an ethical
way to ban perverse searches,
most notably links to child
pornography and abuse
content. At one point, Google
and Bing echoed one another in
saying the regulation “couldn’t
and shouldn't be done.” They
have finally given in with a
little arm-twisting from David

 

Google alert

Cameron, the British prime
minister, who threatened to
bring in a new legislation if

the search engines did not take

steps towards the solution.
Now with over 100,000 illegal
search queries blocked, one
must ask: are we in fact closer

to solving the problem, or have

we just closed the door and
opened a window?

Google admits that “no
algorithm is perfect” when
seeking out sexual predators
and abuse offenders; still, the
search engine has selected
13,000 queries to include a
warning, which states that

what the user has searched for
is illegal and offers suggestions
for help. The problem is those
users aren’t searching for help;
they are seeking pleasure and
release—and they'll get it

one way or another. As soon
as these offenders recognize
the trap doors of the Internet,
they will find loopholes and
alternatives, perhaps ones
that are more dangerous and
damaging.

There is a global consensus
that child pornography and
abuse is an abhorrent crime
and that it should be banned,
but the Internet should be
a platform of unlimited
information. The difficulty is
finding the balance between
blocking too much and too
little. How do we let the
researchers research, while
creating restrictions for the
perverts?

The search engines
will have to decide how
far they are willing to push
the ban. If pedophiles start

using unrelated keywords

to communicate, does that
mean innocuous words will be
banned as well? Slang words
are born every day, and to try
to track each and every one is
a lost cause. Dr. Joss Wright,

a researcher at the Oxford
Internet Institution, made a
valid point saying that users
can start referring to abuse
images as “cake’”—you cannot
block the word “cake” from
searches.

It’s also important to
remember that Google, Bing,
and Yahoo! are just companies
providing a service—they
are not the Internet at large.
The dirty images can still be
uploaded and shared through
peer-to-peer sites, and experts
agree that that is the common
interaction between Internet

pedophiles.

This new firewall might
stop a few perpetrators, but
these big companies need
to watch their step, because
they’re headed towards a
slippery slope. Consider all
the illegal content in the world
and then consider the depths
of the Internet. Our freedom
to search the web may be
greatly hindered if authorities
truly believe that blocking
links is the key solution. You
wouldn’t ban the use of cars if
drug dealers were transporting
contraband on wheels. The
same goes for the Internet.
This blockade is far from the
solution—if anything, it’s a
mere detour.

 

 

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