internet – The Hilltop Monitor

Staying Human in an Online World

Ethan Naber — Fri, 08 Dec 2023 15:00:00 +0000

The Problem
Last year, Americans spent an average of eight hours and eleven minutes looking at a screen every day. That is a scary number. When we look around us, devices are everywhere. We spend, on average, one-third of each day and half the time we are awake in front of a screen of some kind.

Not all technology is bad, though; many beneficial uses of technology exist. We have all probably used spell-check software to remove embarrassing typos or artificial intelligence to do research for an assignment. As I’m writing this line, I have Microsoft Word open to write this article, Firefox open to research it and Taylor Swift’s “Suburban Legends” playing in my headphones. I use lots of technology.

And you probably do, too. Unless you are reading this article in the December 2023 print edition of the “Hilltop Monitor”, you are using a device of some kind—whether mobile phone, tablet, or laptop—to read this. Technology can serve humanity in all sorts of ways. We cannot deny that we are living in the Information Age.

But this relationship—technology serving humanity—is often reversed.

Photo by AltumCode on Unsplash.

The Culprits
In an essay for New York Magazine, ominously titled “I Used to Be A Human Being,” Andrew Sullivan draws our attention to what seems a very simple statement. Mobile phones are, well, mobile. “At your desk at work, or at home on your laptop, you disappeared down a rabbit hole of links and resurfaced minutes (or hours) later to reencounter the world. But the smartphone then went and made the rabbit hole portable, inviting us to get lost in it anywhere, at any time, whatever else we might be doing.”

The emergence of the Information Age, especially social media, creates three critical problems.

1. Quantification of Social Standing
Social media causes the quantification of social standing. In other words, social standing now comes with numbers attached. Instagram, X (formerly known as Twitter) and Facebook all show (publicly!) how many people follow you and how many people interact with your posts. Snapchat shows you a Snapscore that increases every time you send someone a picture. YikYak has a leaderboard of people who use it, sorted by how many upvotes you receive.

These numbers on social media are a double-edged sword. Research from the University of Florida shows a significant negative impact on users’ mental health. People who look at “upward” connections—i.e., profiles that indicate the profile’s creator is “better off” than the viewer—came away with “deflated self-esteem.” In contrast, when people look at content indicating other users are “worse off”, they feel better about themselves. We trade short-term benefits for long-term detriment—while people do feel better in the short term, they do so at the expense of others.

2. Information Overload
We suffer from information overload. We have access to worlds of knowledge at our fingertips: nearly two and a half quintillion bytes per day. If you type into Google the words, “how much information is available to us right now,” Google returns this:

Image caption: Google found twenty-five billion results in under a second.

This does not seem to be a problem per se. Sure, there is a lot of information to sort, but there is nothing wrong with the information existing. Processing that information, though, requires our attention. As such, humans have to triage; we discern what is important, focus on those bits and disregard the rest.

However, the internet puts that system into overdrive. “Viewing and producing blogs, videos, tweets and other units of information called memes have become so cheap and easy that the information marketplace is inundated,” write Thomas Hills and Filippo Menczer of Scientific American. We do not have the ability to effectively parse everything, so our biases take over.

This inability to fully process stimuli activates what I call our “lizard brain.” We are unable to determine fact from fiction or beneficial information from bologna. Critical thinking ceases and we are open to misinformation. We need only look back two years to understand the cost of such misinformation. A Brown University analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic estimates that 319,000 lives could have been saved with vaccinations. That is ten times the population of Liberty, Missouri!

3. Virtual Substitution
Social media, messaging apps and podcasts serve as a virtual substitution for human contact. This does not seem like it should be a problem, either. After all, research exists linking “[the] quantity of one’s virtual interaction partners… [and] better mental health at both the daily level and the weekly level.”

Virtual interactions are wonderful, especially when distance makes in-person interactions impractical or impossible. But if we lack meaningful physical contact (because we limit our interactions to being virtual), we do not benefit as much. Multiple studies indicate that in-person interactions are more fulfilling; Zoom fatigue is real!

We have to take time to talk to the people we care about. If distance makes doing so impossible, maybe give the person a phone or video call. It is so much better than texting, as we can hear a person’s voice or see their face in a call.

The Solution
So what can we do? Fortunately, the Internet has plenty of information on how to avoid the devastating effects of the Internet. (Ironic, I know.) A notable work in this field is Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism. In the latter half of his book, Newport provides solutions to escape the world of technology. I have used his recommendations to outline three easy recommendations and one difficult recommendation for busy college students.

The whole text of Digital Minimalism is worth a read; if you want to read it, it is available here for free from the Internet Archive. (Quick shoutout to the Internet Archive!)

1. Walk to Class Alone
In 1845, transcendentalist and author Henry David Thoreau expressed concern about an overly interconnected world. “We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas,” wrote Thoreau in Walden, “but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.” Thoreau is not challenging the existence of the telegraph, far from it. If Maine and Texas had something important to say, then there would be justification for its construction. Thoreau is simply concerned with remaining intentional in communication.

Newport defines the phrase solitude deprivation as a “state in which you spend close to zero time alone with your own thoughts and free from input from other minds.” When this lack of solitude happens, we lose our sense of identity. I describe this phenomenon as “being afraid of my own thoughts,” however, we need time to be alone with our own thoughts.

“Ethan,” I hear you already saying, “I’m so busy with athletics or academics or extracurriculars or all three at once. How do I find time to do this?” You have more time than you think.

I often find myself (and see other people) with headphones on as soon as I walk out the door of my residence hall, keeping music or video content on for my entire walk to classes or to the Union. For those looking for an easy way to find time with their thoughts, consider walking to class alone. No headphones. Nothing playing. Just you, nature and your thoughts. You would be surprised what it does to you.

2. Stop Liking Things
Weird heading, I know. You might think I told you to not have hobbies, but that is not what I mean. Clicking ‘Like’ on something seems to be a standard way to say, “I like this! This is cool.” When Facebook introduced the ‘Like’ button in 2009, that is what it was supposed to be for. According to Newport, the ‘Like’ button was “introduced as a simpler way to indicate your general approval of a post, which would both save time and allow the comments to be reserved for more interesting notes.”

The quantification of social standing incentivizes people to constantly check their accounts, investigating to see if anyone else has ‘Liked’ their posts or story. But in terms of information conveyed, the ‘Like’ button conveys exactly one bit of information, the least amount of information possible to convey, according to information theory. “To say it’s like driving a Ferrari under the speed limit is an understatement,” writes Newport, “the better simile is towing a Ferrari behind a mule.” By conditioning our brains to accept ‘Likes’ instead of proper communication, we are selling our amazing communication capabilities short. We have limited the amount of fuel our communication can run on; we are literally receiving information one bit at a time.

3. Schedule Everything
Our lives are all defined by schedules. Every person at this College, whether student, staff or faculty, has a schedule to follow. For students, that could be a class schedule; for athletes, it could be a practice schedule. One easy way to limit your screen time is to schedule it.

Schedule time to check your social media, watch television or employ whatever form of screen enjoyment you like best. After that, put the screen away. Newport continues: “Without access to your standard screens, the best remaining option to fill this time will be quality activities.” This is a good blend of abstinence and enjoyment; while you do not have to give your media up completely, you are able to limit it in this way.

4. Detox
This solution is not for the faint of heart. If you attempt to detox, you will have to demonstrate significant self-restraint. When I first read Newport’s book as a senior in high school, I attempted this solution and failed to maintain the thirty days required of me.

Newport’s tough suggestion is to give it all up.

Take thirty days and eliminate all non-optional screens from your life. Newport considers a technology non-optional if “its temporary removal would harm or significantly disrupt the daily operation of your professional or personal life.”

Take Instagram, for example. In considering if Instagram is essential, one must ask themselves if temporary removal of Instagram would significantly disrupt their lives. In most cases, the answer is no (and no, finding out about events is not considered essential). However, if someone runs a business from Instagram (where, for example, they are posting handmade goodies to sell), then Instagram is an essential technology for them.

After the thirty-day detox, begin to introduce non-optional technologies back into your life. Doing so enables you to think critically about whether technology needs to be there or not.

If you are considering this, I seriously suggest reading the entirety of Newport’s book. He provides many more examples and much more research than I can include in this article.

Conclusions
At the beginning of this article, I noted that technology’s relationship with humanity was backward—that humanity served technology, and not the other way around. However, I sincerely believe we can undo this relationship by making our relationships both with technology and other humans intentional. By using our time wisely and using technology to our benefit, not to our detriment, we can save humanity from this servitude. The world is increasingly moving online; we must learn how to adapt.

Internet provider drops Kiwi Farms forum linked to harassment

Zach Gilmore — Fri, 23 Sep 2022 14:00:00 +0000

Photo by Ilya Pavlov on Unsplash.

Earlier this month, the internet forum Kiwi Farms was dropped by its primary service provider, Cloudflare, after intense public pressure protesting the website’s encouragement of hate crimes.

Since its inception nearly a decade ago, Kiwi Farms has been known to be a platform for harassment campaigns, particularly against members of the LGBTQ+ community. The forum has historically been used for attacks on individuals, such as by swatting—sending a false tip to authorities so that police will raid an individual’s home—and doxxing—publishing an individual’s private info on the internet with malicious intent.

A new Kiwi Farms site went online earlier this week, but was reported to have major security flaws in protecting user data. As the site owner of the new Kiwi Farms forum works to resolve the security issues, they warn that account usernames, passwords, emails and IP-address may have been leaked following a massive data breach on Sept.19.

The effort to get Kiwi Farms removed from Cloudfare reached its peak after Clara Sorrenti, a transgender Twitch streamer known as Keffals, was repeatedly doxxed by the forum. Last month, she was swatted and arrested in her own home by London police. Sorrenti fled to Ireland out of fear, where she was found and targeted again in a matter of days.

These attacks resulted in Sorrenti reaching out to multiple news outlets and posting on social media about the harassment she endured. She led a #DropKiwiFarms movement on Twitter that quickly picked up traction.

In the midst of the situation, Cloudflare was hit with widespread backlash. The service ultimately decided to take down Kiwi Farms after violent threats escalated on the forum. Following their decision, users were met with a statement when attempting to access the site: “Due to an imminent and emergency threat to human life, the content of this site is blocked from being accessed through Cloudflare’s infrastructure.”

Opponents of the take-down argue that by dropping the website, Cloudfare is censoring free speech. Others counter that the harm done by Kiwi Farms far outweighed any semblance of free speech protections that it claimed to have.

Since the removal of the Kiwi Farms forum, an anonymous individual bought the URL kiwifarms.info and redirected it to the Transgender Law Center website, where people can donate to “advance the rights of transgender and gender-nonconforming people, defend our victories and ensure our movement’s strength.”

Opinion: The government should keep its hands off my godd*mn internet

Catherine Dema — Fri, 28 Sep 2018 13:00:18 +0000

In the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, Facebook and other social media platforms began publicizing the fact that the companies had found evidence of attempted meddling in the election process via fake accounts, bots, etc.

Since the election, Facebook and Twitter specifically identified several other meddling attempts aimed to affect the outcome of the 2018 midterm elections.

“I can say I think with pretty high confidence I think this is Russian-related,” said Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

In addition to meddling, major tech companies, specifically Facebook, have identified security breaches through which the American public discovered the amount and depth of information these companies collect on users. A whistle-blower at Facebook leaked that Cambridge Analytica acquired private information on users, which may have been used to influence opinion during the 2016 presidential campaign.

In July 2018, Mark Zuckerberg defended Facebook’s refusal to censor Holocaust deniers. This decision resulted in a debate about free speech and censorship. People called for Facebook to censor any and all hate speech, not just hate speech as defined by the United States government.

Hate speech is generally known as speech attacking or targeting persons of minority groups for being part of such groups. According to the legal definition, hate speech is speech “inciting imminent lawless action” (Brandenburg v. Ohio, 1969).

Data breaches, election meddling and increased calls to limit hate and false-speech have induced calls for increased government regulation of major tech companies. Several such companies have been called to testify before Congress in the last several months to address both election meddling and data breaches.

The companies have been contrite about their involvement in election meddling and about data breaches, but they maintain that they have reacted properly despite their mistakes. The statements feel like formalities, evidence that the companies think they’re untouchable.

On Aug. 28, President Trump accused Google of holding an anti-conservative bias.

“In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news [about Trump] is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal? 96% of… results on “Trump News” are from National Left-Wing Media, very dangerous. Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good. They are controlling what we can & cannot see. This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!” Trump tweeted.

The conservative firestorm that followed accused major tech companies of displaying a liberal bias that should be mitigated and, as Trump said, their actions may be illegal. This call to regulate tech companies for their search results is absurd. Absolutely, totally ridiculous.

Maybe Google does have a liberal bias and actively works to limit positive information about Trump. Maybe they use an algorithm that displays the most popular results, which for news often include sources generally acknowledged as reputable, like the New York Times, that Trump deems “left-wing.” Maybe they accept money from companies to display certain results first. Regardless of the company’s policies, if you disagree with the way a company is run, stop supporting them.

Despite data breaches, despite successful tampering with the U.S. election process, despite instances of shared false information, despite hate-speech, despite allegations of political bias, the U.S. Congress should not regulate major tech companies. Free speech should be a primary focus of our democracy.

According to a report from Gallup and Knight Foundation, 97 percent of Americans think that tech companies should be regulated in the same way news organizations are. At risk of stating the obvious, tech companies are not news organizations. They facilitate the exchange of information and opinion but not the publication of information.

Limiting the ability of tech companies to facilitate free speech threatens our constitutional rights and may lead to a slippery slope of what is allowed and what is not being regulated by our government. This is not to say that companies should not have or be allowed to have their own regulatory policies. They should. These policies should simply not be implemented by the government.

If the American public cares about limiting false accounts, false information or invasion of privacy, individuals need to take action against it. We are too passive on the internet. We have lost any semblance of desiring facts in favor of desiring echo chambers.

Foreign nations cannot interfere with our elections unless we let them. American citizens vote in our elections. Foreign governments do not. Americans have stopped caring about making informed voting decisions, have stopped caring about holding companies accountable and have stopped caring about their own agency to make change.

Yes, tech companies have made serious mistakes. Yes, they need to change their policies. But it is our job, not the government’s, to force companies to make these changes.

Facebook has been under fire for over a year now, yet we still use it. We have known about foreign interference in our election process for over a year now, yet we still fall for it.

By being a passive consumer of social media, who claims that companies must be strictly regulated, you are giving these companies more power than they would otherwise have. You get to choose, in part, what information you see, what information you believe, what information you endeavor to learn more about and what information you react to.

If Americans care about the role of American companies in the development of technology, they should take care to understand how this regulation may slow development.

“Will the United States continue its breathtaking technological advances?” Bill Gates, owner and founder of Microsoft, asked members of Congress in 1998. “I believe the answer is yes – if innovation is not restricted by government.”

We take pride in innovation, in development, in leading the world in technology. These developments do not take place in Congress. They do not take place as a result of people who don’t know how to use an iPhone. They do not take place as a result of lifelong dedication to politics.

Technology progresses because people, often young people, are inspired to make a difference and to push their boundaries. If the field is subject to more politicized regulations, these people may be less likely to innovate.

Tech companies have contributed to their own politicization, and the public should hold them accountable, not the government. The more the government inserts itself into the tech world, the more young innovators will be restricted in their development. The regulations people want to place on large companies will influence, and harm, the development of smaller, newer tech companies that will drive innovation.

Photo courtesy of Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images.

A Word on Net Neutrality

Zoe Spangler — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 15:00:08 +0000

How do you use the Internet? For laughs? For games? For research? The answer is yes. The Internet has penetrated virtually every aspect of our lives. Due to its widespread availability, we are accustomed to its free and uninterrupted use. With its ease of access and its expanse, we quite literally have the whole world at the push of a button. But what if one day you could not stream your favorite music or find evidence for that research paper? It is possible that a new policy from the Trump administration could change how Internet service providers (ISPs) deliver the Internet to consumers.

As the Internet exists now, ISPs are expected to provide Internet to consumers in a manner that does not disrupt, alter or outright block certain content providers from their service. This is referred to as net neutrality, or the Title II Order. It was established by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2015 in response to a variety of infringements by telecom companies who had been reported to engage deliberately in altering how consumers interact with the Internet.

For example, in 2011 Verizon blocked Google Wallet from Galaxy Nexus users, and in 2013 AT&T blocked video chatting apps like Google Hangouts. In both instances, these services claimed that Google had not produced an app that would work as designed on the phones. At the same time, both providers were working on their own app content that would have provided similar services to Google Wallet and Google Hangouts, which suggests that they blocked the competition.

As such, the FCC intervened and passed legislation that broadband is to be treated and enforced as a common carrier policy, which means it has the responsibility to treat all traffic neutrally because of its application in public life and economy. According to the FCC, “The rules specifically prohibit: Blocking, broadband providers may not block access to lawful content, applications, services or non-harmful devices. Throttling, broadband providers may not deliberately target some lawful internet traffic to be delivered to users more slowly than other traffic. Paid prioritization, broadband providers may not favor some internet traffic in exchange for consideration of any kind. Internet service providers are also banned from prioritizing content and services of their affiliates.”

Due to their influence, large ISPs have lobbied aggressively for deregulation in order to make room for innovation and investment in infrastructure.

Current FCC Chairman Ajit Pai stands against net neutrality.

“On the day that the ‘Title II Order’ was adopted, I said that I don’t know whether this plan will be vacated by a court, reversed by Congress, or overturned by a future Commission. But I do believe that its days are numbered. Today, I am more confident than ever that this prediction will come true,” Pai said.

Many lawmakers in Congress share this outlook. In related news, Republicans in the House and Senate voted to overturn Internet privacy rules in April, of this year. By the end of the year, ISPs will not need consumer permission to sell browsing info and app activity to third parties.

In regards to net neutrality, Republican officials have similar intentions. In May, the FCC voted 2-1 to begin work on dismantling the Title II Order, with an initiative called Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) or the Restoring Internet Freedom Act. After opening up discussion to the public, which closed Aug. 16, they are due for a decision about how to move forward.

There are many proponents for keeping the rules. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) cites this issue as a matter of First Amendment rights and an infringement on free speech.

“In this day and age, it is pretty much impossible to get through life without using the Internet — which is why it’s essential that our free speech rights are protected both on- and offline. After all, freedom of expression isn’t worth much if the forums where people actually make use of it are not themselves free,” the ACLU wrote.

Another proponent of net neutrality is Mignon Clyburn, an FCC commissioner and previous Chairwoman.

“[NPRM] deeply damages the ability of the FCC to be a champion of consumers and competition in the 21st century. It contains a hollow theory of trickle-down internet economics, suggesting that if we just remove enough regulations from your broadband provider, they will automatically improve your service, pass along discounts from those speculative savings, deploy more infrastructure with haste, and treat edge providers fairly,” Clyburn wrote in her dissent statement.

Even if a net neutrality overturn occurred, it would not be as if our favorite sources for online content like Netflix and Google would be largely affected. Netflix reports to CNN that “Weakening of U.S. net neutrality laws, should that occur, is unlikely to materially affect our domestic margins or service quality because we are now popular enough with consumers to keep our relationships with ISPs stable.”

“It’s the small businesses that are creating new services online and creating jobs that will be at risk because they may not have the financing or the power that a big conglomerate like Google or Netflix has to protect themselves.” Chris Lewis, VP of government at Public Knowledge said.

Net neutrality or no net neutrality, the Internet will remain indispensable among Americans no matter what they’re using it for. Collectively, our lives have been shaped by the presence of the Internet and as such, it will not be easily untangled. No matter how the FCC or Congress choose to respond, there will be consequences.

Photo courtesy of Save the Internet.