Maybe the Internet wasn't such a good idea after all

Remember when the Internet was going to accelerate the growth of human knowledge while fostering a global community of citizens?

Those were the days.

What began as a way for military and academic researchers to exchange information (and then morphed into a wealth-generating machine for billionaires) has become the most sophisticated manure spreader ever invented. And we have only ourselves and the algorithms to blame. 

ICYMI: We are living in the golden age of bullsh*t

Somewhere deep in the bowels of Hades, Joseph Goebbels is muttering, "Meine Güte, ich wünschte, wir hätten das Internet gehabt, als ich für die Nazi-Propaganda zuständig war" [1] while having his entrails consumed by hellhounds.

[This is where I am contractually required to issue a caveat: The Internet is also responsible for many positive things. Like, for example, my ability to generate a fake Joe Goebbels quote on the fly (thank you, Google Translate) or this video of adorable kittens:

I also owe my livelihood to the Internet, both as something to write about and as a tool to research and publish stories. But I'm not entirely sold on that being such a good thing, either.]

I am starting to feel like this was all a horrible mistake. Can we have a do-over?

The Section 230 blues

In this case, I am mostly talking about social media. And the root of the problem starts with how these platforms are moderated and designed. But first, allow me to indulge in an extended metaphor. 

Imagine you have money to burn, so you decide to erect a stadium-sized billboard next to a busy freeway. The billboard is blank, but you've invited members of the public to bring their own spray paint and decorate it however they want. Pretty soon, word gets out and the thing starts filling up. 

Most of the entries are pretty benign. "Hello world." "Jose was here." "Do I not look adorable in this outfit?" And, for some reason, people keep drawing pictures of semi-literate cats pining for meat sandwiches.

But then somebody sprays in very large red letters across the middle of the billboard, "Kill all the ______s!" (insert name of marginalized group here). This is followed by "Hell Yeah!" and "Right On!" and various other affirmative responses. Another suggests that it would be a fun idea to drink formaldehyde, and encourages children to try it. Someone else offers to sell pictures of children drinking formaldehyde. And so on.

Are you, the owner of said billboard, responsible for the terrible things other people are writing on it? Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 says no, you're not. The people who wrote those terrible things can be sued (if you can identify and find them), but you're in the clear. 

ICYMI: We are all information warriors

This controversial law is often credited for the unfettered growth of the Internet, and social media in particular. If you were held legally responsible for the stupid things people spray painted, the argument goes, you'd never have put up the billboard in the first place. And thus: No Facebook, no Twitter, no YouTube, no Reddit, no comments sections for news articles, etc. 

The funny thing about Section 230 is, in our extremely divisive social and political environment, both sides hate it. Conservatives want to dismantle §230 so they can sue social media companies for removing posts that promote causes, beliefs, and wackadoodle conspiracy theories they favor. [2] Liberals want the owners of these sites to be held responsible for the damage they are causing to our social fabric, in the hopes it will inspire them to take stronger measures against harmful speech.

Finally, something we all can agree on. Right? Well, not exactly.

The izard of Woz

This post was inspired in part by the news that beloved Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak [3] is suing YouTube over videos that hijacked his image and used it to promote phony Bitcoin offers. (Like Mary and her lambs, whenever crypto goes, a scam is sure to follow.)

After Woz first sued Google/YouTube in 2020, a lower court threw out the case, citing Section 230. This week an appeals court ruled the case could go forward. Per EvanLaw:

"Plaintiffs claimed that Google and YouTube contributed to scam ads and videos, thereby positioning defendants outside Section 230 immunity. They argued, among other things, that YouTube displayed false verification badges, thereby becoming active content providers contributing to the scam’s fraudulent nature."

Now a jury gets to decide whether YouTube participated in the scam by failing to remove the videos (and their faux badges) in a timely fashion, thus profiting from any traffic those videos generated. It's not a repudiation of §230 by any means, but it's a start.

Remember, this piece of legislation is now old enough to have moved into a one-bedroom apartment and begun paying for its own cell plan. When the Communications Act was being crafted, AOL and its 5 million members were the biggest online thing going. Yahoo was not quite two years young and Amazon was still an obscure online book store. Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, and nearly all of the other platforms we mindlessly click into every day had not been invented yet. The Internet was a much different place. 

ICYMI: Why the Internet sucks, and what you can do about it

What would the Net look like if §230 had never existed? Online services might have been a lot more careful about who they allowed to sign up (show your ID at the door, please), and how they moderated them. Companies probably would have grown more slowly. Without all that VC money flying in every direction, the dot com boom/bust might not have happened. If social media eventually developed, it would probably more closely resemble the bulletin-board-systems (BBSes) of the early 90s — small, tightly knit communities of like-minded folk. 

And we might not be drowning in 'alternate facts' or swarmed by armies of anonymous idiots — many of them not actual humans — when we call out the bullshit. A man can dream, can't he?

Moderating social media content is not easy. It takes an army of workers to scrub that billboard all day every day and take the cans of paint away from the people who abuse their writing privileges. It's expensive, impossible to do well at scale, and bound to piss somebody off. But I do believe the owners of these massively profitable entities [4] should be held responsible for the damage they're causing, intentionally or otherwise, to our social fabric. And they need to accept that responsibility before it's completely shredded. 

The other option: Turn off the Internet. Pull the plug on all the servers. Climb into Doc Brown's DeLorean and turn the clock back to 1985. And then you'd be reading this rant on a sheet of loose-leaf paper stapled to a telephone poll. 

Even telephone polls enjoy better SEO than Beehiiv. If you like these posts, feel free to share them on the (grossly irresponsible) social platforms of your choosing. 

[1] Translation: "Gosh, I wish we'd had the Internet back when I was in charge of Nazi propaganda." 

[2] And when overturning §230 didn't work, they set out to build their own propaganda platforms or acquire existing ones, the same way hedge funds have been buying up newspapers in order to eviscerate journalism. It's clear to me that Elon Musk purchased Twitter intending to turn it into an anti-woke propaganda machine by deliberately chasing away reputable journalists while promoting all his Nazi-adjacent friends. And if that investor group looking to buy Tik Tok (headed by ex-Trump Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin) succeeds, I'm betting it will try to do something similar to that platform. 

[3] Wozniak is what you'd get if Winnie the Pooh mated with an Ewok.

[4] Except Xitter. That dumpster fire is being fueled by shares of Tesla stock.