Internet History Reviewed - We Screwed Up

I'm from New York, but I have lived online since dial-up networks, and continuously and deeply for over 15 years. I know my neighborhood. I know where to get good pizza and bad sushi. I know the internet that way too.

In the early days of the internet, and especially Web 2.0, we were optimistic, energized, enthused, and mostly wrong.

We were convinced we had ideas that would revolutionize the world and allow the best, strongest and most inspired human ideas and aspirations to become the predominant ethos of our world. 

Everyone was desperately protective of their products, ideas and companies. Each company built barriers, supremely convinced their idea was unique and needed to be secured. But we also built isolation.

In our optimism we forgot basic philosophy, that inescapable yin and yang of reality; good cannot exist without evil.  Within all good resides some bad.

With the lurking evil summarily ignored, we happily moved on.  More than 10 years later, the mantra that the best will rise to the surface and good voices will prevail over bad, was still being uttered in the corner offices  of the major companies.

This despite mounting evidence that disruptive, caustic, malicious players had established a long lived, strong foothold on the internet in major places. In the isolated company environments,  the shared industry-wide nature of the problem went undetected. Perhaps even ignored. And in quiet, fertile ground of the ignored digital places, the problem grew. Even the groups who had dedicated themselves to monitoring hate online questioned themselves about the extent and impact of hate online.

We were wrong.

Government and law enforcement were largely ignorant of the problem.

Victims struggled to cope with a system which offered few substantive, reasonable channels for recourse to their problems.

It was as if  we were hearing completely different things with no one translating.

Fortunately, the disciples of hate, bias and discord were not smart or patient. When President Trump was elected in an atmosphere of social divisiveness, they took that as their signal. Over the years they had interpreted society's lack of serious response to their movement as an indication of tacit approval. They miscalculated and badly overplayed their hand.

In 2017 the hate movement managed to demonstrate what the social movement watch-dogs had been saying for years, violent words lead the to violent action. Although not all keyboard racists are violent, Charlottesville and other events have proved that they truly act as the cheerleaders for a deeply malevolent and viscious segment of society. 

This is now clear, for anyone brave enough to look. The tools for exploring the depths of the internet are available as never before. Identities can still be hidden, but the nature, extent and vectors of malice are now easily documented.

Yes, there is much good online. The benefits we have derived are beyond knowing. We  have discovered that good does not flourish without help, but evil does. However, good grows quickly with the slightest attention while hate and bias stagnate and struggle under the same conditions. The number of dark unobserved places online is shrinking, not because of censorship or control, but because people, companies and governments have seen the true cost of hate and finally agree it is unacceptable.