The internet is not the problem: it’s something much more worrying

If your subscription lists are minimally complete, you will have read James Bridle’s “Something is wrong on the internet” by now, a long and detailed article about the proliferation of certain videos on YouTube Kids, used by many parents to keep their children entertained, often exposing them to completely inappropriate content.

These kinds of inappropriate videos have been identified already: content using popular children’s characters in violent contexts, typically with extremely simple graphics. Bridle’s analysis doesn’t just look at content, but also explores the mechanisms of a platform that not only facilitate this type of content, but also rewards those who provide it through algorithms and financial rewards for bringing viewers to the site. It’s an interesting analysis, which largely blames YouTube for not doing enough to eliminate this type of content other than by providing systems to report it or mark it as inappropriate.

However, the conclusion from Bridle’s analysis is even more unsettling: the internet has a problem. The combination of factors such as the unlimited development of the attention economy, algorithms that reward sensationalism, along with anonymity and other characteristics of the internet, have created problems that should not be there. But in reality, the real problem is not the internet itself: it’s in human nature.

Let me explain: all systems can be used in different ways. The absence of regulations to avoid harmful behavior, or inefficient regulatory systems have generated abuses of numerous types: spam came with the popularization of e-mail. Should we blame the inventors of the email? No, the problem is that some people discovered they could use email protocols to send commercial messages to a large number of unsuspecting, inexperienced or stupid people at very low cost, exploiting them to separate them from their money. This behavior is constant: each service that emerges attracts people willing to use it to deceive, steal, manipulate or pervert its original purpose. Social networks are platforms for sharing content, but can be used to manipulate an election. YouTube is for watching videos, but can also be used trick children with inappropriate content, earning money by exposing them to inappropriate content. ICOs are now on the rise, and with them, we have seen a huge increase in the number of attempts to bamboozle potential investors and steal their money.

In the absence of effective regulation due to the speed with which new tools are developed and popularized, criminals evolve and colonize each new environmental niche on the internet. By the time uploading videos to YouTube to take advantage of its algorithms becomes a criminal offense, criminals will have moved onto other things.

A good lawyer will always be able to find loopholes to get wrongdoers acquitted, while the principle of “I know it when I see it”, or plain common sense, is not used enough.

There are not enough courts or judges to solve the problems of the Internet, and even if there were, they would be confronted with a complex reality of jurisdictions and national judicial systems that have proved totally incapable of adapting to a global environment without borders.

What one state attempts to define as unacceptable behavior and frame within criminal activity of a type that no doubt already existed, in another country is totally unlegislated or is in a limbo where it is impossible to apply existing laws. Control mechanisms such as reputation or earning society’s opprobrium that might have worked in the past stop to certain behavior, are no use, and again, trail behind the criminals. When a malicious individual finds a way to take advantage of a certain platform, most of society is unaware of what is going on.

We have created a tool we do not know how to control and that many people have managed to twist for their benefit, resorting to behavior that anyone with a minimum of common sense can see should be punished, but rarely is. Again: the problem is not with the internet itself, but in human nature. What can be done with people who make their livelihood out of exposing children to completely inadequate and objectionable content? What punishment is appropriate? How can we discourage such behavior? How can we adapt the law to bring under control the worst aspects of human nature in an environment that is changing so quickly?

(En español, aquí)