Seemingly Guilty from the Gate

After reading over the article "An Apology for the Internet - From the People who Made it", I have a few opinions on what the founding fathers of the internet do and don't need to apologize for. The tone in which this article is written drips premeditated guilt, something that is portrayed with the sad image in the beginning of the article, stating that these founders are "sorry for destroying privacy and democracy" This brazen apology sets the tone for the reader believing that these internet developers somehow pushed the world into an oblivion of wrecked privacy and data mining. Personally, I believe that this is not the case, and that blaming these devs for the internet having wrongdoings taking place within it's gates is a sloppy and ineffective method of shoving the blame on one person in particular.

To start, the fact that the internet has "destroyed privacy" is a far cry from what really occurs behind the facade of user friendly social media. Starting from the beginning, the second a user signs up for one of these websites, a long list of terms and conditions is shoved in your face very clearly. You know, the terms and conditions that we all skip right over? Those terms detail what data will be saved, who will have access to your data, and why your data will be used. It is your job, as the consumer, to read these and scan for anything that you dislike or are not comfortable with, and make the appropriate choice on whether or not to sign yourself up for this service. While I totally stand for making large companies abide by a set of rules that value customer privacy, it's not fair to click through all of the legal jargon because we want to sign up for a website, and then come crying to these companies when they sell off our data to spam agencies, exactly like they said they would in the lengthy terms and conditions. Sometimes, even though these terms and sketchy business practices can be hidden underneath and within a flood of text,  it is necessary to buckle down and read through this. If we care about our privacy we must do everything we can to be responsible about what who and what we give our information to.

Considering the massive apology from people who created the internet, not knowing what would come, it seems somewhat unwarranted, as these original creators had no malicious intent in mind when creating the world wide web. If we as humans hinder out technological progression, simply because we are afraid of what it could be spun into, we would still be living with ancient technology. These visionaries may feel guilty for giving rise to their inventions being used for bad things, but the world knows that the real people behind the crime and misuse are criminals. Applying this to the topic, the internet being spun into a conduit for crime is not the fault of it’s creators, but rather of those who misuse it. Privacy and cybercrime are big issues, but we all must realize that there are things that we can do to be more responsible and make this issue a little bit less heavy. Crime can hardly be stopped on something as anonymous as the internet with the use of tools like TOR and proxies, but at least we can all work to fix the issue of data selling and privacy violation by being more responsible and looking at who we’re relinquishing our data to.

The internet itself is an amazing tool, capable of connection the world and different people within milliseconds. The fact that bad things go on here is nothing to be surprised by, but honestly, the good mostly outweighs the bad, and for this reason, the internet is nothing to apologize for.

-Eli Cokley