## Freedom of Information If you've ever tried to do online research, you've likely come across the frustration of having that research locked behind a paywall. You click on a link to a promising research article only to find the abstract and a button for purchase. Access to the information is being held hostage by companies like JSTOR, EBSCO, etc. There are exceptions, [arxiv.org](https://arxiv.org) being one of my favorite, but a lot of the information on the web is not free ([as in beer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre?wprov=sfti1)). One of the major benefits of [[Learning in Public|learning in public]] is that you are contributing to the collective knowledge of the internet. That is what the internet was originally built for, sharing information, knowledge, and ideas. The anonymity that comes with the online world is given a bad rap and is often associated with bad actors hiding their identity, but lest we forget that the anonymity is also a great equalizer. No matter your age, ethnicity, gender, economic status, or perceived level of expertise, each user is just that -- a user. Ideas are given equal weight and equal consideration. A ten year old can debate with a tenured professor at a prestigious university half way around the world in a common arena with equal playing fields. This is the internet that I know and love. ### SOPA & PIPA On January 18, 2012, over 50,000 websites on the internet, including many of the big websites like Google, Amazon, Craigslist, and Wikipedia, replaced their websites with a dark page with a message fighting in the name of information freedom. This one day shutdown of the internet was done in protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) bills that were in consideration by U.S. Congress. ![[dark_wikipedia.png]] ![[dark_google.png]] ### Intellectual Exploration I believe that intellectual exploration ought to be a fundamental human right. Everyone should have equal access to all publicly available information. This is fundamental to innovation and the progression of the human race at large. Isaac Newton once wrote that "if I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." He is saying that building off of the previous discoveries of others is imperative and indirectly acknowledges that his discoveries could not have come to fruition without the knowledge he gained from other people. >*Note: I mention <u>public information</u> above specifically and intentionally because there are certainly classes of information that should not be shared openly. For instance, state secrets are secret for a reason. Dissemination of this type of information is likely to result in harm. The idea is to maximize the sharing of information and knowledge so long as it is ethically sound and is not reasonably believed to bring harm to others.* ![[jack_andraka.png]] In 2012, a 14 year old boy in Baltimore named [Jack Andraka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Andraka), while perusing research articles in JSTOR thanks to his school having a licensing agreement with the company, developed a method for early detection of pancreatic cancer -- a deadly cancer due to the fact that there were no good methods for early detection at the time. Jack emailed his findings to hundreds of people at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. One person took interest in Jack's idea and eventually helped to make Jack's idea a reality, thus saving countless numbers of future cancer patients that would otherwise be helpless. Had Jack not had access through his school to research papers gatekept by JSTOR, an early detection method may not have been found and the lives of many people diagnosed with this disease may not have been saved. This is a critical example of how uniform access to information would help to progress science and the lives of everyone. You never know where the next breakthrough will come from or who, despite their age, gender, demographic, etc., may discover it.