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Internet moral values
I have a quandary.
Recently my younger brother collaborated with a few of his friends to set up a website to display their creative work. His friends went on to publish some of their stuff, and distributed it around his college. His teachers managed to get ahold of it, and as a result the parents found out about it.
I'm told that there was a huge argument where the words "fascism", "expulsion", "objectification" and "insensitive ignorance and arrogance" made repeat appearances. His internets has been unplugged, and he's being forced to write a letter of apology to the college. I've been told (ME???) that I should attempt to instil moral character in him, and show him why he was wrong to write such stuff.
The thing is, I don't really feel strongly that he WAS wrong, except in the capacity of being stupid enough to give his complicity to having it physically published and circulated around a Christian based college. I had a look at his website and in all honesty I wasn't impressed one way or another about it. There were no nasty images or anything, just the ironic strings of consciousness about women and bestiality that you would expect from a bunch of 16 year olds. I thought it was peurile but nowhere near touched the depths the internet is capable of. My parents, who aren't religious and are fairly open minded, are really upset about it however. My dad is ranting about fascism and my mum is genuinely hurt about some of the things that he fictionalised about women.
I think my parents are being naive about the internet. On the other hand, some of the things they said about harmful negativity, on second thoughts, were true. Is-it-really-irony is everywhere right now, and it gets me down. You can't go three steps without someone cracking a hilarious joke about gyppos. If you get upset about it then it’s LITENUP and PolitkulcorretnussgurnMADD. I'm sure it wasn't always like this, but my brother was raised on this stuff. He isn't a racialist or a sexualist, he's just a geeky indie boy like me.
TL; DR. Has the internet made me insensitive? Is their a generation gap in attitudes towards the internet as a form of expression, or is it part of a larger social milieu? What the fuck am I supposed to say to him to instil proper moral character?