Before I began my MA in Writing & Digital Communication, much of my social and intellectual life was lived online on social media platforms, in shared posts and private messages and chats with friends. Much of it still is, and the quarantine has only increased that. Currently, funny, topical social media posts are now responsible for supporting most of my sanity now. But when I’m not careening down the void of nihilistic millennial humor, I’ve been thinking about how dire I thought things were in the fall of 2018, when I first began the W&DC program.
In the online circles I made my home in then, we were still reeling from the one-two punch that was the lingering aftermath of Gamergate. The online alt-right’s warmup performance was followed by their magnum opus, the domination of the 2016 presidential election’s online discourse. These events didn’t sit well with my previous experience. I knew the web was a wonderful tool that I used to make friends during lonely times, to fire my imagination, to learn about those undreamt stranger things. I knew it couldn’t be all bad. Where was that glorious tech meritocracy they promised us?
Roughly two years later, with the knowledge I’ve accumulated I can say with confidence that the Internet, in its dialectical totality, is a powerful tool for education and connection, a rich caldera of culture that is eclectic and prescient. It is forever changing and full of delicious contradictions. But for some, it is a terrible place that feeds heartrending insecurities, ridicules sincerity, and incites inhuman behavior toward others. For many, it provides the benefits inextricably bundled with those terrible effects. Without strident rules and regulations to ensure that it’s a good place for all of its denizens, the web will never become the tech utopia we hoped for… But should it?
Part of my studies have allowed me to interrogate the unvoiced assumptions that I hadn’t realized would come with these fantastical visions of the future. My studies allowed me to examine the unconscious biases that are coded into algorithms, which then influence things as seemingly inconsequential as the content recommended to you on social media, and as immense and complex as the operations of machines. Since the tech field is still quite homogenous, many of these malicious algorithms are inescapable, and buried so deep that it’s hard to tell where to start rebuilding. Or if we should.
Obviously, things are on hold for now and priorities have been upended, but to be frank, I do not expect the leadership for this necessary shift to come from within the tech establishment. Indeed, radical change rarely comes from the heart of orthodoxy. I believe that, for ‘my’ internet to continue to exist, alternate and wholly accessible spaces must be created from the ground up. These spaces must be guarded and moderated zealously to prevent bad actors and misinformation from entering and staying, in accordance with Popper’s paradox of tolerance. This, I feel, would be the best way to create a safe and accessible webspace for all, and I’m not sure if or when that will ever happen.
But just when I was ready to be a total cynic about the state of digital communication, the quarantines began. I watched older teachers, who were dismissive and fearful of teleworking, settle into video-conferencing their classes with aplomb. I’ve seen digitally-organized drives deliver food, money and supplies to those in need. And, of course, I’ve witnessed the curious meld of dark yet hopeful humor that is the hallmark of a generation trying their best to stay calm. While the pandemic rages, the lines of communication are quietly humming, as they always have. And the song they hum will show us the way back, when this is over.
Isobel Robinson-Ortiz 