A critical look at our digital present
The state of the internet is unstable. It faces attacks from all directions, including societal issues rather than technical ones. The internet is rife with misinformation, marketing, and advertising permeate every aspect, and armies of automated and politicized bots roam its social media landscapes. This is filtered down to you through carefully chosen algorithmic posts meant to keep you on your preferred platform and give you endorphins. Everything is changing at the moment, and not always in a positive way.
Looking back ten or twenty years, the “World Wide Web” appeared drastically different to many of us during that heyday. Everything about it felt and was different, including the social media sites, the communities, the world of gaming, the accessibility and knowledge, and the purchasing. The companies that participated in the venture were amazing—almost revolutionary. Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, Netflix, and Amazon are all extremely innovative, market-upsetting companies that have defied convention. With their fantastic features and reasonable prices, they attracted a large number of users and clients.
However, as companies have taken the middle ground to increase their profits, those same features and costs have gotten worse over time for the regular Joe. This typically happens once they become public; instead of being motivated by the principles and ideas that established them, it is the demands of shareholders, investors, and board members for higher profits.
A digital world downfall
According to this article, information access and educational resources are also disintegrating. Nowadays, thousands of TikTok reels and YouTube shorts have muddled and diluted a great deal of the information available, spouting out a variety of lies from anyone with a phone and making 60-second videos.
It is getting harder and harder to tell what is true and what isn’t, what is real and what isn’t. This is one of the reasons Google frequently modifies its search ranking algorithms to prioritize accurate and factual material above misleading and AI-generated content.
In today’s age of social media celebrities and demagogues, your reach and the number of views on your work determine whether or not people will take you seriously; if your claims and facts are believed to be true.
Fact-checkers covering a wide range of social media platforms, Community Notes highlighting instances in which powerful people spew out absolute nonsense, and news aggregators, bringing together all the media to offer you the complete range of political opinions on any given event. Some scientists now make a profession by refuting the irrational and empirically inaccurate nonsense that other social media influencers spread.
Algorithmic echo chambers
It is a systemic issue. It all began on social media, where algorithms now provide “curated” information instead of merely displaying a timeline of the people you follow over time. Your preferences, as well as the things you watch, read and listen to, all served as fuel for the fire. Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook all provide you with content in this way. As long as you remain on the site and continue to view advertisements, it does not matter the content. It is so common now that it is difficult to find a feed system on any social media site that does not do that.
The issue with this is that it has successfully suppressed innovative discussion. You are constantly exposed to the same information rather than having meaningful conversations or having your beliefs challenged or questioned. As a result, you sit in an echo chamber of like-minded people repeating the same things, which further solidifies and shapes your opinions. It is easy to see how this actively contributes to a rise in radical opinions and ideas.
If there is no one to question your opinion, how can it develop or change? It is one of the reasons why so many people around the world are nearly in shock when their preferred political candidate loses in the most recent elections. Because they only see an overwhelming amount of support for their preferred party on the internet.
What should we do?
Nevertheless, there is still hope. Since the beginning, the WWW has produced many more positive outcomes than bad ones, and this is still the case today. As long as people are still using it to actively and freely connect, it will be beneficial.
Because it is not what makes the news, we do not hear about the numerous scientific discoveries made possible by the internet, the medical diseases that have been cured, or the humanitarian relief that has been organized. It is not engaging. Neither the papers nor the scientific publications mention that. We do not hear about the connections made or how essential it is to the overall infrastructure of our contemporary civilization.
So, how do you fix it? It is not as easy as just applying a Band-Aid solution. The World Wide Web is, by definition, a worldwide platform. It will take teamwork to get some sort of agreement on how to make the existing quagmire better. That has previously occurred in the tech field.
Education is a solution since it applies to people of all ages, not just children and teenagers. Similar to how we aim for full adult literacy, we must make a strong effort to ensure that every nation-state is computer literate. This goes beyond simply teaching people “how to turn on the PC” and “this is the internet,” but also teaches them how to spot bogus posts, fact-check statements, locate multiple sources, and determine whether what they post online is legal. People of all ages just do not have access to or knowledge of so much of that.
It is challenging to pick up new key skills in a global society. However, it must be repeated, but in the digital age. We did it for reading, for the danger of nuclear destruction during the Cold War, and for the introduction of seat belts in automobiles. Is it difficult? Yes, but we have experienced and will continue to experience technological upheaval.
However, the truth must be told. Although the primary purpose of content creators is often driven by the desire for views and money, and this frequently leads to polarization and distortion in the narrated facts, this doesn’t mean that ‘junk’ information is all on one side and truth on the other. Critics of the multitude of innovative and unconventional theories on the internet would like to wipe out every sort of doubt, appealing to the principle that truth is only on one side when doubts should come from both sides if censorship is to be avoided.
It’s obvious that in freedom you take the good and bad of everything, but it’s up to people to make the effort to understand that if there’s an economic interest that pollutes the truth, it exists on both sides. Some aim for profit and are part of the official narrative, and some don’t. Some propose alternative and reasonable solutions and aren’t listened to, while those who shout something absurd to get views (even though that’s not the metric to judge by) end up delegitimizing those who were saying the right things even if in the minority. Truth is not just on one side.
