Democratizing the internet was a mistake. There is something about humans. It takes us awhile to figure out when we have made a mistake. We can’t see or acknowledge the mistake because the mistake is obscured by notions of progress and purpose.
In the case of the internet, progress took the form of access to broadband services, open-source programming, building out new online portals and platforms, and building new fiber facilities to the home and the curb.
Purpose included connecting more individuals to electronically stored information and to each other. We wanted to hear more voices, read more thoughts, and see more people via video even if were a thousand miles apart.
If progress and purpose are the good, then there is plenty of bad. Data brokers collecting information from public and private sources, packaging the data, and making it available to consumers and businesses. Scammers contacting you via email telling you that your long-lost cousin in Nigeria will send you one million naira if you send her ten thousand dollars.
And let’s not forget the online vitriol and hate. America has always had divisions along political lines. The online world has amplified the hate by providing silos within which separate voices could fester within their respective echo chambers.
For the content creator posse seeking views, clicks, and giggles, it appears that focusing on the headline of the day and speculating ad nauseum on causes and reasons behind an event is the primary tactic for sharing information. This approach is increasingly just as salacious as mainstream media’s approach to reporting the news.
At one point, social media may have offered alternative viewpoints to a news item, but I am starting to find social media channels increasingly biased. The technology and ease of access to the internet has created a saturated environment of noise with a lot of that noise misinformed.
It is enough to make me want to cancel democracy.
The next best thing may be the use of artificial intelligence for cutting down the clutter. I can see where some technology firm offers an AI agent that can scour publicly available and subscriber-only databases for news. This agent can be designed to have a particular race, sex, accent, etc., and present news with a particular tone, i.e., calm and collected, angry, sympathetic, etc. No more cluttered spaces with new voices trying to out sensationalize the other.
Will this reduce the silo effect we are seeing now? No. It would disrupt the content creator industry and likely force competition for online space based on nuance.
Alton Drew
4 February 2025
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