The internet’s changing face
There is a dark side to technology’s ever-present web
The internet is a wild place and has certainly come a long way from its early dialup days, to the high-speed, powerful network we know today. I don’t think anyone could have anticipated just how much this invention would come to influence and change our lives and the array of questions regarding humanity it would raise along the way.
The internet has literally changed the trajectory of how we work, how we interact with each other (or not), how we learn, how we shop, how we read, and so much more.
I was in my first year of high school when talk about the internet first came out.
At the time I had no idea what it was, but a year later, while on exchange in Japan, I was experimenting with email, web searches and MSN Messenger — the first type of chat system which proved highly popular amongst teenagers.
Then there was the introduction of MySpace, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, Twitter, Google etc.
All these things were all really exciting and something I’m still personally grateful for, but like guinea pigs in a real-life experiment, we’ve all had to navigate this space without any clue of what we’re doing or how to cope.
These days if you want to get to know someone and what they stand for, adding them as a Facebook friend can often provide you with a fairly good indication of who they “really are” based on how they choose to conduct themselves online.
For some, it’s like the online world, protected by their screen and keyboard, has become fertile ground for people to say things they’d never normally say in public or to someone’s face.
Some people online have also started acting higher than thou, tearing others down who don’t agree with their particular viewpoint or align with their agenda.
I can’t say I haven’t had my moments on social media where I’ve commented on something I disagreed with, but never to the extent where I’ve torn someone down, called them names or threatened to hurt them or their family.
I think this relentless attacking of a person and their behaviour (however distasteful) can sometimes go way too far and be worse than the distasteful thing a person has said in the first place.
This mob mentality can lead to people becoming suicidal, reclusive, anxious and isolated and even scared to leave home, for fear of being further shamed or hung out to dry.
Everything you do these days can be recorded and uploaded to the internet, which if you’re lucky
(or unlucky) can be viewed by billions of people all over the world.
What’s more is that it’s stored online forever, never to be removed, making that seemingly innocent faux pas a possible life sentence.
Now apply this to vulnerable young people, already feeling insecure and confused about life and it’s a recipe for disaster.
Our rangatahi (youth) are experiencing bullying and intimidation at levels unfamiliar to those of us privileged enough to have grown up without the internet.
Cyberbullying is a very real, very serious issue for many children and can be insidious in that, as a parent, you may never know it’s even going on.
In the past, if a child was being bullied at school, that behaviour was often contained to the playground and was obvious for all to see.
With the way the internet is structured, a child can now be subject to having derogative words, images or even videos of themselves shared by others anonymously and not just within the school gate boundary, but to the entire world.
Take the example of a school girl who had her face superimposed onto the body of a porn star.
Those videos are now freely available for all to see and despite the girls parent’s best efforts to have them removed from various websites, they continue to circulate around the globe and will likely continue to do so until the end of time.
The rise of DeepFake technology (the practice of taking a person’s face and placing it onto another person’s body) is gaining traction and becoming more sophisticated each year.
I recently saw a skit whereby Arnold Schwarzenegger’s face was superimposed onto the body of Kate Winslet’s character “Rose” from the movie Titanic.
Given how obvious it was that it wasn’t the real Arnie (or Kate for that matter), it was pretty funny to watch, but it’s when people decide to use this stuff for harm that this type of technology can take a turn for the worse.
Like the above-mentioned example of the porn star or an innocent person’s image being used in a scam video or to hide the identity of a real person committing a crime.
These are all issues we will continue to face and will need to learn how we deal with.
It’s therefore sobering to think about the direction we are headed as a society and the many questions technology will continue to make us ask of us as a species.