Chris Jarling

Engineering Manager
25th Nov, 2017

The state of the internet

The internet has eaten the world. Where in older days, respect was everything, now information has taken that place.

Here's Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the internet on his feelings towards its current state in the Guardian:

“I’m still an optimist, but an optimist standing at the top of the hill with a nasty storm blowing in my face, hanging on to a fence,”

You may already feel in a similar way. If you don't, you should then go on and read this article by James Bridle, in which he talks about what grotesque things happen to see the light of day when content is only produced to satisfy ranking and search algorythms, not humans.

Someone or something or some combination of people and things is using YouTube to systematically frighten, traumatise, and abuse children, automatically and at scale, and it forces me to question my own beliefs about the internet, at every level.

Oh boy, where are we heading with this?

© 2024 Chris Jarling