Le Monde announced the Canadian army had asked its soldiers to be cautious with what they posted on their Facebook page. It asked its fellow soldiers “not to post any personal information or online photos on the Facebook website, as these could be used by terrorist groups such as Al-Qaida”.

In a memorendum to their army forces, broadcasted through the CBC, the Canadian Army reminded that “members of Al-Qaida might be monitoring social websites such as Facebook [...]. This might sound dramatic, but the information might be used to aim members of armed forces. This could make your family or even your friends potential targets for terrorists”.

This topic brings out a much larger concern : what is the Internet used for nowadays? We know that it can be used by individuals for unethical means such as terrorism, child pornography and political rumour-spreading. However, how is it used by our own Governments?

In an article posted by the BBC this week, it seems that the US Government will start using virtual worlds such as Second Life to spot terrorists – or potential terrorists. “We can see groups emerging in cyber spaces and virtual communities that would be wholly virtual,” said a spokesman from the US Counterterrorism Foundation. “They would organise and radicalise in virtual worlds and attack using cyber methods without becoming a real world presence in any real way.”. This issue is taken very seriously by the US Government, who believe they will be able to spot emerging patterns in Internet Social Networking websites that will eventually enable them to carry investigations on certain users.

In today’s world, one might wonder what sort of impact these campaigns will have on Society. As our actions are being increasingly observed on the Internet, if such campaigns are to spot critical blogs or forums, they might mistake freedom of speech for pro-terrorism speech. One just can’t be careful enough on what they do over the net these days, may it be joking around on facebook, discussing political issues over msn or posting compromising footage on youtube.

We’ve all heard of the Wikileaks scandal, where people have been allowed to released classified information about targeted companies in the US and Europe. The debate has been turning around freedom of speech and digital rights on the Internet. The sentence is still to be heard. After all, if the internet becomes a real watchdog of information and a bigbrother of interaction, how will it survive in the next few years? Aren’t those concepts the ones that make the Internet what it is: a source of information from the people for the people, where opinions differ and excentricity exists? If that definition is altered through policing, then the essence of the Internet might be jeopardised.