Internet could have been a Force for Good.
As designed and purposed by its originators, it was supposed to bridge the gap between knowledge and people.
It was supposed to bring a brighter future closer to our generation. It was supposed to make our lives easier.
Instead, it became the plaything of the rich and powerful, who have long since mined our Data, weaponizing it against us.
For some time now, I have believed that if Ceausescu had managed to cling to power another four or five years, Romania would have never had its Revolution. Why do I say that? Look at North Korea or China or any dictatorship that has endured into the Internet Age.
For the Internet has been hijacked for its power to control the masses. It has basically become a tool for population control in the same sense that mass-media propaganda had been used for the same purpose in the Past.
So, instead of fostering instant communication and anonymity, the Internet has become another tool of repression used by State actors to control the narrative, and detect public discontent, or worse, rout out malcontents.
Worse still, in the nefarious hands of private corporations, our data, our lives, our personalities have become an open book used by a minority to create wealth by speculating our strengths and weaknesses against us.
Do I remember life before the Internet?
Of course, I do. It was a time when people still met face to face, had conversations, fought, argued, struck friendships, fell in love, had families, enjoyed one another’s company directly and without any technology intermediating it.
And no, I will not call a phone call or TV or radio set technology. Those were tools or devices one used to get things done. Monopolizing a landline or hoarding the TV did not have lasting effects beyond creating bad animus within the nuclear family.
What the Internet created was a monster, whereby people hid from themselves, like reclusive Pallas cats, becoming mean and dehumanized. Beyond fostering an atmosphere of distrust between humans, the Internet not only failed to bring us together. It split us apart into 8 billion individual bubbles, all choking on self-conceit, self-entitlement, and a disproportionate sense of self-worth.
30 years later after the invention of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland, the Internet has become the epitome of everything that could have been good but had gone wrong instead.
| ORIGINAL INTENT | CURRENT OUTCOME |
| Meant to spread ideas and opinions | Used to spread misinformation and disinformation |
| Meant to build knowledge bridges across space | Used to control and fragment access to information |
| Meant to create knowledge that you can trust | Used to censor and disseminate propaganda |
| Meant to enable educators reach out to people | Used by criminals and terrorists |
| Meant to facilitate social services to the people | Used by Government to facilitate mass surveillance |
| Meant to achieve instant mass communication | Used to disseminate fake news |
It appears the road to Hell is indeed paved with good intentions. Alas!
Götterdämmerung 