The disadvantages of an increasingly transparent world outweigh the advantages - closing speeches

Closing proposition speech

Ladies and gentlemen, we believe that you must have been amused by the self-contradictory speeches from the opposing side. And our team really wants to express our thankfulness that, their ridiculous speeches have brought us so much fun! How ironic it is to prove their motion by appealing a transparent world while dreaming that the commercial companies can secure our privacy. We feel obliged to save these childish teens from their illusions and to bring them back to the Earth instead of leaving them wandering aimlessly in the outer space. (Continues below the fold…)

by RH

Closing opposition speech

First of all, I’d like to complain. Why? As Chinese, I’m often joked by my friends that we don’t have Facebook, which, for them, is a glory place to speak freely and exchange important information. It is the symbol of democracy and transparence! Since China is a society with less transparency, life is difficult when you want to get some information that the government wants the hide. (Continues below the fold…)

by FS

Closing proposition speech

Ladies and gentlemen, we believe that you must have been amused by the self-contradictory speeches from the opposing side. And our team really wants to express our thankfulness that, their ridiculous speeches have brought us so much fun! How ironic it is to prove their motion by appealing a transparent world while dreaming that the commercial companies can secure our privacy. We feel obliged to save these childish teens from their illusions and to bring them back to the Earth instead of leaving them wandering aimlessly in the outer space.

According to the definition of a transparent world described by HM, a world can be described as transparent when it is easy to see through, understand, or recognize. On the contrary, there's not a single time that we receive some friend requests of some people who we aren't sure whether they are friends or schoolmates on the Facebook. In that case, we tend to research further into their personal details online which are usually unavailable. It's not easy to recognize him or her at all. That is to say, we are far from a “transparent” world. HM might explain that all those are constructed under the premise that it won't sacrifice one's privacy. Even the inner network of Pentagon can be successfully attacked by hackers, why not Facebook? In a certain degree, personal data online is actually public to all, what really matters, is the technology. For example, the personal data in the bank is usually more secure, but on Feb. 4^th, 2013, an anonymous hacker published 4000 bank executives' personal data¹. With all these facts, how can we confidently announce that our privacy under the so-call protection of the simple configuration in our accounts of Facebook can be soundly kept from giving out? That's just a fairy tale.

A transparent world against crimes? Both HM and MS have used the example of Boston bombing. Our dear audiences, if you have read the speech given by YM, you can at once realize what an awful example it is. If the increasing transparency of the information may help the police, why couldn't they foresee this crime in advance? What we really need is not the amazingly short time to find out the suspects but the possibilities that we can stop all these tragedies before they have been put into practice. In the other hand, the increasingly transparency of information profoundly threats our privacy by accelerating the spreading speed of virtual virus which might give away our codes of Facebook accounts².

MS argued that we had ignored “netizens”’ responsibilities to control the information they share. We dare not neglect these responsibilities, but in most cases, we aren’t intended to be published online. The problem is born with the birth of the websites like Youtube. Either as the crowd or as the main characters in the short films, not every one of us has been requested before the videos put on the site. Probably, we don’t care sometimes. Nevertheless, who knows whether it exist a time when the film may do harm to our public image. At this step, we feel it terrible to imagine the existence of Google Glass which might give a live broadcast of what is happening in the WC!!!!

That’s not an end. As for the program introduced in Seattle mentioned by MS, our dear audiences, please don’t be taken in by the opposing side. Actually, the program is a collaborated relationship between some local shops and the police agency. These shops are granted the rights to detain the suspects and to contact with the police at the first sight of theft. Above all, for each case, the shops need to fill in an application form which will be handed to the police later. Instead of describing it as a form of transparency, we prefer to view it as a kind of collaboration between the local shops and the police in Seattle. There isn’t any sign indicating that the process will be announced to the public³.

The final thing to mention is that, we admit that a transparent world does have some advantages, but when it comes to the recent development of the Information Technology, it has gone too far. This can easy explain with all these friend streams online, why the social website still remain a part to configure the rights of diffusion of our shares, why the U.S. have established a cyber-headquarter, why the governments have to release various regulations to ensure the security of personal data online. All those have been done at the name that privacy never dies! For your proper rights, for your privacy, for your future life, our dear audiences, vote for us!

RH

Closing opposition speech

First of all, I’d like to complain. Why? As Chinese, I’m often joked by my friends that we don’t have Facebook, which, for them, is a glory place to speak freely and exchange important information. It is the symbol of democracy and transparence! Since China is a society with less transparency, life is difficult when you want to get some information that the government wants the hide.

That’s why I’m totally agreed with my dear colleagues and we think that the disadvantages of transparent world outweigh the advantages!  Let me summarize our main arguments.

First, let me return to the definition of transparency. According to Wikipedia, “Transparency is a general quality. It is implemented by a set of policies, practices and procedures that allow citizens to have accessibility, usability, utility, understandability, informativeness and auditability of information and process held by centers of authority.” The motivation of transparency is a general requirement for democratic societies. The right to be informed and to have access to the information has been an important issue on modern societies.

Well, living in a transparent world doesn’t mean that you are spied anywhere and at any time. On the other hand, privacy is a conception quite difficult to define. Well, the frontier between public and privacy is just so vague. Can we say that we are losing our privacy when publishing our everyday life story in Facebook? The information is not private when it is you who take initiative to say it. You, in a certain way, have agreed to sign the contract acquiescently by publishing it; even though there is a possibility that our web browsing is traced and used by someone we don’t know as long as it doesn’t disturb your personal life, that’s not a big problem. Moreover, we are even glad that Facebook helps us find our longtime-no-contacted friends. Isn’t it fantastic that the future “Google Glass” can almost give us all the information when you are walking in the street or when you are doing some shopping? No more information is collected actually. This new technology just makes the access to the information more convenient by simply talking to your glasses.

Last but not least, the transparency accelerates the exchange of information, and to a great extent, helps our society to be more democracy. We shouldn’t just keep eyes on little things around us and we should go further to the scale of a nation and even the world. Still take the example of China, as there is only one main Party, CCP, the main journals like “People’s Daily” just publish the “optimist” information and the bad news is usually hidden. Nobody knows it because we are not informed. But with the arriving of Internet and especially those powerful social networks (actually, in China, we don’t have Facebook but we have Renren which is an equivalent), information is quickly and widely spread and the government has no way but to keep honest with the public. And I should say, that does be a great revolution! I still remember that in 2012, the war is Syria broke out and all the information actually is given by local people through Twitter or through videos in YouTube! They want their massacres and illegal treatments to be known the world! They fight for liberty and for democracy by fighting against the autocracy and by showing the world this unfairness! They asked for help thanks to the social networks!  And for what is related to my dear French friends, the scandals of their ex-financial minister are reported by the power of media. And President Holland ask for a more transparent political environment by asking every minister to show their financial sheet to the public.

So Ladies and Gentlemen, in conclusion, we are living in a world that is going to be more transparent inevitably. Till now we have seen many necessities of a transparent world, especially for a sense of democracy. Privacy is not a big deal if the information is dealt legally; and moreover, the government may even be a great helper to the public security and allow a way such that the drawbacks can be improved in time. Hence we insist that the advantages of a transparent world outweigh the disadvantage. Let me finish my speech with the sentence "Criticisms are inevitable from people who are afraid of change or who have not figured out that there will be an adaptation of society to it." Thanks for your attention and I’d appreciate it if you could vote for us!

FS