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I don't know if this is what you're getting at (probably not), but I've often thought a lot of the "ills" we see with the current web ecosystem (particularly so-called "fake news", disinformation campaigns, propaganda, etc - the whole stinkin' mess) could be solved if it were required that everyone identifies themselves - almost like a driver's license to use the web. Make people truly responsible for their words and actions online, and maybe politeness and civility might return. Let anonymous actors still communicate, but they would be known as such, and the browser or whatnot could identify that and mark them as such, so that others can know whether or not to put their trust in them. But then - that also goes against my real belief that the internet should be free and anonymous; it also goes against reality, as we've seen real-life examples of people who are toxic, divisive, insincere, hateful, etc - being perfectly forthright with their identity online and people flocking toward them by the thousands. Conversely, there are also plenty of completely anonymous personas and characters out there that people also believe and hold their words to be true; in some cases more true than objective reality. I don't know what the real solution to all of this is, at least in the short term. In the long term, better education for everyone would be the ideal solution, but with that also being vilified and worked against by individuals and groups who have an agenda to prevent such betterment, pushing that solution and having it work long term is increasingly becoming seemingly non-viable. Even in a perfect world, though, where such a thing weren't being molested, it might still take a generation or two before any results were potentially seen. I think long before this is solved, the solution may present itself in the utmost form: A worldwide civil war, that'll make both WW1 and 2 look like skirmishes. |