Can Social Media Be Redeemed?

I read that Jack Dorsey, a co-founder of the micro-messaging service, claims to regret his role in the creation of the internet. Is there anything left to redeem social media, given what we know about the divisiveness, violence, and misinformation that it promotes?

Following Jack.

Thank you, Dear Following.

It is never a good sign when the creator of a technology disowns his own creation. Einstein regretted his work on nuclear chain reactions, which led to the creation of the atomic bomb. At the end of his life, the Russian military engineer who designed the AK-47 realized that his invention had been responsible for more deaths than any other rifle. How much can we expect of humans when God fails to anticipate the destructive potential of his own creation? In the book of Genesis, God looks down on the evil that is taking place and sees he made a grave error. It is an unfortunate truth that creators tend to overlook their mistakes only after it is too late to fix them. They cannot wash away the damage caused by their tears of remorse.

You would think that we would be more cautious of the promises of virtual utopias because of the pervasiveness of ancient myths. Many techno-idealists argued that the Net would level social hierarchies, enable new forms of political organization, and put an end to corporate power. With the arrival of Web 2.0, the hopes coalesced around the fact that the site could unite the mass against unjust powers. A young man who spoke in aphorisms and was often described as "ascetic", thanks to his fasts, his Shaker furniture, and his simple, yet pricey, Filson, emerged like a prophet from the wilderness. Profiles often described him as looming over the panorama of San Francisco from the heights of the Square headquarters. A visionary was a godlike figure who could anticipate the complex functions of the world that so few of us could see from the ground.

Fifty five percent of internet traffic is controlled by six companies. The problems that have sprouted from these centralized powers, such as misinformation, ideological polarization, data mining, mass surveillance, and algorithms that amplify the most extreme and sensationalist voices, have been seedbed by the social media site. Those who hate the world they cannot bring themselves to leave are the people who use the most popular endearment, "This hellsite." The fact that you have to ask if the platforms have any redeeming values suggests that you have come to dislike them. I am not sure I can convince you. It is possible that social media can teach us about human nature and the ways in which horrible effects can stem from good intentions.

Theodicy is the question of how evil can emerge in a world created by a being who is both good and powerful. The father of cybernetics once argued that theodicy could be used to think about our role as technological creators. The book of Job and the book ofParadise Lost suggest that the creator is not in complete control of his creation, according to the author. The consequences of the digital tools we create cannot always be foreseen in advance.

As our technologies evolve in complexity, the penalties for errors of foresight will be greatly increased. He said that we should not regard human creators like gods or prophets, but like a character in a fable who discovers a magic lamp and must ask the genie to fulfill a wish. They cannot fully anticipate the ripple effects they might generate, so they must be very careful in how they word those wishes.

Users are turned into limited creators on platforms made by creators. Seemingly innocent posts can be taken out of context, go viral, and ruin the life of the poster turned creator, or find their way into a corner of the internet where they become fodder for conspiracy theories. These sites allow us to believe we are the gods of our own universe by choosing which accounts to follow, which posts to linger on, and which threads to engage with. Each of these actions is a part of a system that perpetuates and intensify those choices, shaping and limiting our understanding of reality. As our vision narrows, the echo chamber of consensus strengthens our belief in our views, leading us to believe that they are foolproof.

Eschatological is the preferred solution to these problems. Web3 is a new world that will return the internet to its original state of being. He expressed skepticism about the promise of New Jerusalem. In December, he received backlash for suggesting that Web3 was already in the hands of venture capitalist firms. When one of the investors of that firm posted a quote that is often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, Dorsey replied, "You're a fund determined to be a media empire that can't be ignored."

Despite his responsibility for some of these problems, his brand of skepticism might offer a model for the rest of us to follow. We should remember that the visionaries of our age are not divine entities but ordinary humans who have stumbled on magical instruments they do not fully understand. The person mentioned is the person named Elon Musk. Whatever shape social media and the internet take in the future, one would hope we could reach a point where Dorsey's preferred term for Twitter is minimalist.

The cloud is faithful.

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