It seems like only a few years ago the Internet was a harmless realm of entertainment and diversion from the trials and tribulations of real life.
It was a smorgasbord of porn, everything from softcore porn featuring lipstick lesbians pummeling each other with pillows to hardcore smut that wouldn`t be out of place in an adult book store in Times Square circa 1970.
It was a soapbox for citizen journalists to publish their editorials to a worldwide audience, a force of democratization that democracies as well as totalitarian countries perceived as a threat.
It was a platform for UFO wingnuts to post their out-of-focus videos on YouTube, spreading their galactic Gospel to the four corners of the world.
It was an outlet for maligned and ridiculed cat ladies to infect everyone with their love for their furry significant others, indeed it`s felines not porn or flying saucers that have broken the Internet.
The Internet is still all of these things, but today there`s less whimsy and more worry. Today we wake up to the tweets of a president who has weaponized social media to the detriment of the Internet and our democracy.
Bullies who once terrorized a playground can now wreak havoc on the virtual world, a child can no longer be free of a coward`s taunts when he`s home, the bully`s taunts can follow him home on Facebook and Twitter.
in the early days of the Internet the biggest threat we faced from hackers was annoying adware, now they can siphon our bank accounts in a nano-second.
The Internet is no longer a distraction from real life, it is real life. We shop, date, go to school, and pretty much do everything online. We can`t disconnect from the Internet without becoming a recluse and a hermit.
Life can be unbearable at times, and we live our lives in the virtual realm, so naturally the Internet is unbearable. I hate to sound pessimistic, but common sense and rationality won`t prevail online or in real life until artificial intelligence replaces humankind.
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