The Internet you think exists, or thought exists, is gone. Been gone awhile. It was damaged beyond repair while you watched. Most people did not notice. This was not done by the right-wing, the left-wing, the media, the politicians or users alone. The ultimate attack against the internet was led by the very people who created it.
Yes, the internet has helped many people, but when it started helping the worst of people with the most malicious agendas Jack, Mark, Sergey, Jerry, Jeff and most others, did as little as possible. At the same time racists, misogynists, extremists, elitists, abusers and malefactors of every stripe did as much as possible to erode the foundation of higher principals it aspired to foster.
There was plenty of warning.
Under the thinly veiled disguise of anonymous rumors, alternative news, suppressed facts and conspiracies an increasingly subjective definition of what are facts and truth emerged. Much of this activity centered on targeting religious groups, minorities, women or immigrants and , as such, was not widely decried. Many people did call out the companies for enabling the abuse which desensitized us to corrosive behavior. Anyone within the industry knew/knows the watchdogs who called for more aggressive action by the platforms. Both at the companies and in society. Anyone within the industry also knows that most of these people left in frustration, disgust or disappointment when it became clear that the executives of the companies were going to let hate persist unchallenged.
This was years ago.
Now the moral fabric of the internet is in tatters and the intellectual landscape is not looking much better.
Companies prioritized evolving profitability over evolving safety and sacrificed the core of the internet's true value in the process.
Now that users are pushing back, abandoning platforms and apps which fail to protect them, the scramble is on to find a cure. But hate is like a cancer. Surgery is not always the best approach, but true solutions take time, creativity and investment and hate has a tremendous lead in that race.
