Sometime last year, the Pew Research Centre conducted an extensive study on the nature of the Internet, and asked “In the next decade, will public discourse online become more or less shaped by bad actors, harassment, trolls, and an overall tone of griping, distrust, and disgust?”
The results were very pretty dismal. As many as 42% said it will remain the same, 39% said it will be worse than it is today, and 19% said it will get better.
There are two views of the Internet. And, neither is inherently wrong. At one end, there are those who see it as a repository of all those values that epitomise the best in humanity. The world-wide web leads you to the best resources in every aspect of human endeavour. As a medium that is difficult to censor, because no one country really controls it, it allows for a plethora of ideas.
At the other end of the spectrum people are quite convinced that those things that we find ‘good’ about the Internet, are the same ones that are going to be used to enslave us.
They point to the spread of disinformation, and the ease with which societies can be divided. They point to the trolls and anonymous hate mongers who vitiate the atmosphere.
As it is becoming clear that terrorist are using the same decentralised, democratised technology, to brainwash, recruit, and spread their tentacles worldwide – a perverse form of the gig economy – there is a growing fear, that the bad of the Internet will overwhelm the good.
Right now, at least as per the Pew research, it looks like the pessimists are winning. With the increased negative sentiments about the kind of ecosystem – hate filled, abusive, anonymous, calls, deeply misogynist, based on superiority and exclusion – the Internet is becoming, the calls for filters, and censorship have begun.
There is talk of AI moderated spaces that ensure sanitised areas for interactions. There are predictions that anonymity – a cornerstone of the Internet – will have to be barred to ensure that people ‘behave’. There are many who believe there we will have to balance out the privacy of some for the security of all. Which is all very well, except it is as naïve as believing that technology is the panacea for all societal ills.
Censorship and outing will simply move what is visible and in your face, underground. Where the miserable spend time with others equally miserable, and concoct plans to spread their narrow miserable world view, without check.
And, as in any society, whatever is forbidden is exciting. There is no reason to believe that banning or censoring will not make these ‘extreme’ groups more attractive.
The Internet did not create hate. That has been a part of human behaviour from the start of history, or even earlier. What, however, it effectively does is allows haters to come together and congregate easily. The problem of hate speech, and a call to hate-driven actions is real; as are the misogyny and inherent sexism of certain groups.
There is no easy solution to the problem of abusive trolls. Except extreme forms of censorship – that pick out and ban specific individuals, handles and groups. How far do you really go to stop anonymous trolls and haters – do you restrict your own freedoms to get at ‘them’?
Ultimately filters that are used to keep out one set of people, can and will be used elsewhere. The Chinese, for example, have a very sophisticated system of filters, dubbed the Great Chinese Firewall, to keep out ‘undesirables’.
There is no universal solution to this problem, not one. Unless we want the solution to be applied to us, at a later point in time. My answer would be no. The solution is community policing rather than an universal ban, with the right for the ‘accused’ to find redressal.
Having universal filters for content as ‘desirable’ and ‘undesirable’ is dangerous for all our freedoms.
The other solution is compulsory media citizenship programmes for students from school, so that they learn about how to navigate the innerwebs, with security and privacy, along with learning etiquette and norms.
While we discuss online behaviour, the question we need to find an answer to is not how terrible the trolls are or how low they will sink; but are we willing to reduce our freedoms to reduce theirs?
(Harini Calamur is a writer, teacher and film-maker. She tweets at @calamur)
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