{"id":324,"date":"2025-08-08T23:08:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T23:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/dberr012\/?p=324"},"modified":"2025-08-08T23:08:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T23:08:18","slug":"the-commonplace-illegal-things-we-do-on-the-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/dberr012\/2025\/08\/08\/the-commonplace-illegal-things-we-do-on-the-internet\/","title":{"rendered":"The Commonplace Illegal Things We Do on the Internet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In Andriy Slynchuk\u2019s article, they highlighted how there is currently a big gap in digital literacy.<br>This gap shows a disconnect between what internet users routinely do and what is actually legal<br>for them to do. The title itself even opens up a conversation for what is actually safe for us to do<br>on the internet with the title, \u201c11 Illegal Things You Unknowingly Do on the Internet.\u201d Through<br>the established idea of the article, it shows how the law has not been able to keep up with ever<br>changing technology with users not being educated enough on the legal boundaries of their<br>behavior online. This creates a scenario where millions upon millions of people can be<br>conducting and engaging in illegal activities through their normal internet routines. The common<br>patterns in digital law violations were shown through several key categories. There were<br>intellectual property violations that involved the downloading of copyrighted content without<br>permission and streaming content from unauthorized sources. There is the category of privacy<br>and security violations that includes using someone\u2019s WiFi without permission and sharing<br>passwords for streaming services or other accounts. This is already something that everyone<br>does whether you have a family netflix account or just need to get access to someone\u2019s<br>discount on a site. Another category is in terms of service violations with legal implications. This<br>category delves into the violation of a platform\u2019s terms of service in ways that would be a breach<br>of contract. It also includes age misrepresentation on these platforms that have age restrictions.<br>Through looking at this article from an economic view, these unknowable violations represent<br>market failures with information distribution. Users can often lack all the correct information<br>about their actions could lead to, which also leads to widespread non-compliant actions. The<br>platforms and creators bear the costs of enforcement while the cost of education and<br>awareness is externalized to the users. In having unknowing illegal behavior online, it also<br>reflects a breakdown in the social contract between tech providers, the legal system, and the<br>users. Within most legal frameworks, there is already an assumed knowledge of the law.<br>However, in the new digital environments, there is more complexity in the legal compliance<br>involved. This article reflects the risk society theory most in how new technological<br>advancements can also create new forms of risk from users to navigate. In having unknowable<br>illegal behavior conducted online every day, there would need to be new policies to mitigate this<br>from happening. There would need to be better education for digital literacy, a more simple legal<br>framework, and more responsibility for platforms to communicate the legal implications. In<br>reflecting upon this article and the violations we can unknowingly commit every day, it is very<br>enlightening but also concerning to process. In highlighting how our digital lives can also exist in<br>a complex legal cyberspace, it is hard to not look at every action you do online to make sure it\u2019s<br>safe and within the legal parameters. The gap between what we know and don\u2019t know about<br>how we should behave online proves that there needs to be more laws in place to evolve to our<br>current technological state. Slynchuk\u2019s article highlighted many critical issues in our current and<br>evolving digital society. They highlight how there is responsibility needed all around. For us to<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>be responsible for being more informed, and platforms to educate on what are the right things to<br>do on their platform. The issue of illegal behavior online is not just a legal problem, but is a<br>social and economic problem that requires detailed solutions to fix. Only by acknowledging and<br>fixing the issue can we be safer and more digitally literate for the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Andriy Slynchuk\u2019s article, they highlighted how there is currently a big gap in digital literacy.This gap shows a disconnect between what internet users routinely do and what is actually legalfor them to do. The title itself even opens up a conversation for what is actually safe for us to doon the internet with the&#8230; <\/p>\n<div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/dberr012\/2025\/08\/08\/the-commonplace-illegal-things-we-do-on-the-internet\/\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":30971,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wds_primary_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/dberr012\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/dberr012\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/dberr012\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/dberr012\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30971"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/dberr012\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/dberr012\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":325,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/dberr012\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions\/325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/dberr012\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/dberr012\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/dberr012\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}