In the beginning of the Internet, people who were tech savvy enough to dial up and get online discovered a world where you could talk to someone in a chat room a thousand miles away. It was enlightening and a breakthrough that many people enjoyed. It was a new way to make friends once you got pass the suspension of rather it was even real or not.
As the platforms evolved and chat rooms turned into community forums where people posted one day and came back a few days later to check on the responses, more people got involved and created community groups for like-minded people. This took off and there were community forums all over the Internet of people chit-chatting about the commonalities of everyday life.
And as the options of communicating with others evolved even more, social media platforms with personal pages, messaging and chat programs, texting and video communications became the new way of community organizing and involvement. When print news organizations realized the amount of traffic online in these social platforms, they moved online and began publishing the news of the day.
Enter the comments section. Once political topics drew personal opinions, the Internet turned aggressive. People were posting news articles to forums and commenters found themselves defending what they believed in, in the most egregious tones and personas. Anonymous opinions increased into personal attacks as people were able to hide behind a pseudo identity and spew whatever words they thought of at people a thousand miles away.
Exit civil dialogue and common courtesy. What was once neighborly conversations and shared advice became vicious attacks against character, religion, race, and gender. Foul words slipped through expletive filters and into the cyber world causing people to take with them the pains of the attacks from people they did not even know. Bullying, lying, misinformation and racism exploded online and many platforms found themselves having to shut down the comments section.
Certain organizations formed entirely as Internet commenters called trolls, and paid people to be mean and hateful. People sat in basements getting paid to post insults, hate, racism and misogyny under news articles and social media platforms. Algorithms were written by programmers that reposted hate, and replicated insults and misinformation day in and day out. Leading us to where we are currently.
Right now, there is an entire movement disguised as a force for the people aimed at providing free speech to people who have become experts at trolling and spitting hate at their political opponents and perceived enemies. In an extreme move toward public division, a billionaire bought out a massive social and political platform just so people who are hell bent on insulting other people and lying to the world can have the right to hate without consequences.
Misinformation has spread so deep in the layers of the Internet that people cannot and do not know how to root out the bad from the good. Conspiracy theories have taken root in the public square and politics have become a game of who can insult their opponent the best, or who can come up with the biggest lie the public will believe.
So much for the common good among the people. We have entered a world of normalized hate speech, insults, and people who are paid to kindle the fire of rage. Division is the name of the game. Civil menacing, viral hate post, deleted and banned accounts, shadow-banning of people and silenced personal opinions. Unfortunately, we have seen, in the last few years, this movement of the comments section take hold in real life, among actual people, and crowds are squaring off in public spaces. The internet connecting of people was innovative and exciting, but what it has led to is frightening. People are dying.
DISCLAIMER: The content of Pro Liberation is firmly opinionated and is not meant to be interpreted as official news. We glean facts and quotes from mainstream news websites and abridge its meaning for readers to relate. We do not indulge in misinformation, conspiracy theories, or false doctrine but choose to express our right to free speech as citizens of this country and free born under God the Creator. We represent Nu Life Alliance Inc. a non-profit organization in the battle for social and economic justice. Donate to our cause at the following link. DONATE
