A thought worth pursuing today is "Was the ascent of the internet a contributing factor in the (observed) corresponding decline in civility?"
Yeah, I think it has played a major role in that. Just read any online forum. People can't even talk about CAR REPAIRS (all caps!) without getting testy on some of the posts I've read, and car repair is a vanilla subject, in the scheme of things....
...'cuz we've got:
Hackers, bots, compromized sites and pages, verification codes, upgrades, updates, phishing, Zuckerberg before Congress, Twitterstorms, fake news, fake accounts, fake emails, fake followers, scams, scammers, ordinary books priced by third party sellers on Amazon at $1,900, redirection to third party sites, constant backing up of data, altered videos, cyber bullying, spam, photoshopping, public shaming, web hosting, web presence, influencers, 'signaling' on Twitter, archives, privacy settings, outsourcing, media giants, consolidation, net neutrality, censorship, deleted accounts, blocked accounts, "Hello- I'm Alexa. Let's get started!", cloud sharing, glitches, bugs, fixes, breaches, streaming, containment, feeds, threads, trends, trending, ads, ad blockers, custom content, cryptocurrency, trolls, likes, shares, banner ads.....
...security alerts, data mining, malware, troll farms, cookies, viruses, patches, the 'dark web', across platforms non-compatibility issues, spyware, remote access.....
....yowza!
"Sheriff's comin' on the noon train!"
Xiang Gao- Unsplash.com
The way I see it, cyberspace at present is just another rendition of pioneer/gold rush mentality. Into this new territory, let's call it 'Bytewater', internet settlers moved in and along with 'em came varmints, and without the U.S. Marshall around, or the cavalry, folks just had to take the law into their own hands sometimes, that is, until things (hopefully) got settled. Vigilante social justice became the answer to Twitter showdowns and shootouts on the streets, after which the Undertaker did brisk business with formerly robust accounts. Newcomers seemed to be always encroachin' on somebody else's claim and ain't nobody was safe. 'Least, that was the way it used to be.
Then one early evening, things changed. Over at the Social Media Saloon they didn't see it coming because they was a busy slingin' mud while the boys in the back, the venture capitalists and angel investors, were concentratin' mightily at the poker table, all of them hidin' aces up thier sleeves.
At the bar Charlie was servin' up rotgut gaming apps and over in the corner women were debasing the outfits that other women were wearing in selfie shots they had posted.
Comments were scrolling down screens (everybody was now and again peeking, monitoring the feed on their smartphones) then every once in a while, in reaction to something or another, some hothead sitting somewhere erupted, chairs skidded out of the way and tables got overturned, this always bein' the precursor to a fistfight breaking out. Once that happened, and before cooler heads separated the factions, there was always the chance things might just escalate into a full-on barroom brawl.
But on this fateful afternoon the saloon doors swung open wide and in strolled John Wayne, newly appointed cyber sheriff, along with his just-deputized sidekick, Billy the Geek. Billy came in leveling a sawed-off wireless router, and everybody got real quiet. Men in the corners reached for their Twitter pistols but Billy jumped 'em and fired off a Denial Of Service warning shot that traveled at the speed of light, shutting everybody down, temporarily.
"Bar's closed!" John Wayne shouted. "Anybody got a problem with that?"
Muttering was heard all around. Folks in these parts weren't used to bein' reigned in.
"Sez who?" challenged Sam Bickerson, not wanting his business dealings halted for a nanosecond.
"Sez ME" Wayne countered. "Billy- hit the OFF button"
"You ain't gonna make us go dark!" gasped Millie and her girlfriends, over in gossip's corner.
"Too late!" Wayne replied, while nodding to Billy to deny all within the Social Media Saloon access to the internet. While The Duke kept the bar riffraff at bay by keeping his ear to his phone, ready to give the command to shut off the server to the entirety of Bytewater if he had to, Billy turned his attention to 128 bit encryption for a second, rapidly entered some code, then replied eagerly "It's done!".
"Now how're we 'sposed to do bizness?" grumbled the venture capitalists over at the poker table, their smartphone screens now dark, while the angel investors nervously scanned the room for the nearest exit.
"Ain't gonna BE no more business!" Wayne yelled. "Now git!" To that, people started shuffling out slow but Wayne, as he is wont to do, kicked one laggard in the behind as an example to the rest to get out the door quicker. In a matter of seconds, the last patron was outside the saloon's doors and hustling down the muddy street.
To this, you could almost hear the townspeople sighing in relief. They'd been in hiding but now out they came, after peeking out windows and through cracked doors.
"Safe to come out now, sherrif, is it?" one asked Wayne.
"It is. They won't be back. They're moving on"
"Ain't gonna be the same without 'em" said another, in a kind of happy and sad way at the same time.
"No it ain't" Wayne replied.
"Heard they're headin' for Urkbeckistan!" another citizen, newly arrived on the scene, piped up. Then he gave a low whistle before exclaiming "That there's wild country!"
"That's right" Wayne replied, watching as the last ones scattered. "And there they'll stay. They might threaten to come into town again, but I don't think they will. Law and order'll keep 'em out."
"Sure was excitin' for a time" came a citizen's voice.
"Yeah, it was" Wayne drawled. "And I think it goes without sayin' that some of us are gonna miss 'em, they bein' so unpredictable creative. But regular folks can't live under saloon conditions and so we had to run 'em out. It's better for everybody that they're gone.
'Sides, I don't think Bytewater's jail was big enough to hold 'em all".