This week, as a rather abrupt reaction to Mark Zuckerberg’s rapid migration towards Trump and the MAGA coalition, I did the following:
- Stopped watching cable news (e.g. Fox, CNN, MSNBC, etc.)
- Closed my Facebook account
- Closed my Instagram account
- Closed my Threads account
- Closed my Twitter account
- Cancelled my New York Times subscription
- Cancelled my Washington Post subscription
I like to think that I did this for some rational reasons:
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I cannot support any organization that appears to be ignoring it’s own culture and morals and appears to be trying to get into the good graces of an authoritarian regime. Whatever they might do for me, it is clear that their focus is actually not on what is good for me. Some might argue that this doesn’t make sense for a product/service that I am not paying for. I agree, and the truism that in cases like this, the axiom “you are the product” applies. Regardless, I don’t want to be seen, sold to or otherwise involved in any way with the machinations of an autocratic government.
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I cannot support any organization that actively participates in the spread of misinformation, regardless of their purpose or motives. Any democracy depends on an informed electorate, and the propagation of misinformation is directly counter to this and “poisons the well”.
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I cannot support any organization that purports to be non-partisan and unbiased while it simultaneously makes clearly partisan overtures in public.
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The growth of massive inequality is fundamentally destabilizing to societies, and lending any form of support or credibility to the surveillance capitalism of “big tech” simply makes this growing inequality worse.
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The big tech companies have slowly, over decades, been trampling over some of the original tenets of the Internet; namely that anyone should be able to publish something that anyone else can see (subject, of course, to jurisdiction-specific legal limits to what constitutes “free speech”), and that the Internet is resilient and will continue functioning even if parts of it are damaged or corrupted. The trend of more and more of the data flowing in the Internet passing through this tiny group of huge companies goes directly against that spirit.
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The proposition that a media company can serve the public, publish information rather than misinformation, and make a profit at the same time without being compromised has been thoroughly debunked in my mind.
In recent weeks, many have been lamenting that “we are on our own”. I tend to agree, but I am optimistic that with what parts of the Internet we still have access to, we can build a new “unterweb” that is free from most or all of the above maladies and better reflects the intentions of the founders of the Internet. In addition, I also note the following:
- One’s sources of information and choices of technology must be carefully curated and actively managed.
- Protecting one’s self from misinformation, disinformation and kompromat requires significant effort and an active defense.