Slashdot Mirror
Internet Is Having a Midlife Crisis (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: The rise of cyber-bullying and monopolistic business practices has damaged trust in the internet, pioneering entrepreneur Baroness Lane-Fox has told the BBC. The Lastminute.com founder also called for a "shared set of principles" to make the web happier and safer. She said the internet had done much good over the last 30 years. But she said too many people had missed out on the benefits and it was time to "take a step back". "The web has become embedded in our lives over the last three decades but I think it's reached an inflexion point, or a sort of midlife crisis," she told Radio 4's Today programme. Baroness Lane-Fox co-founded travel booking site Lastminute.com in 1998 before going on to sell the firm for 577m pound seven years later. She described the early days of the internet as being "full of energy and excitement," and akin to the "wild West". "There was this feeling that suddenly, with this access to this new technology, you could start a business from anywhere," she said. However, she said that while technology had become a hugely important sector of the UK economy, it had not fulfilled its early potential.
The internet started sucking when it became big business, when it became "serious," when it was somehow important to trust it.
This.
Commercialization of the internet transformed internet culture into something very different, and worse.
I take particular issue with cyber bullying because the term doesn't need to exist. It's harassment plain and simple. Often, online harassment quickly becomes PUBLIC harassment, but it's still simply harassment. Just like the adoption of "mansplaining" when "patronizing" already exists, creating new words with unofficial definitions allows people to control and change the definition to fit their needs in the moment.
For example, if a 5th grader harasses another 5th grader via Facebook, many would commonly accept that as cyber bullying. But if a member of the public harasses another member of the public on Twitter and then, by virtue of the harasser's follower size, triggers a mass onslaught attack, is that still "cyber bullying"? What if the victim is someone with unpopular social/political opinions? Does it then depend on what those opinions are? What if the victim is being Twitter shamed for not supporting gay marriage? Is that "fighting the power" or is it "cyber-bullying"?
I ask this as someone who is a long-time supporter of equal marriage rights, but a similarly long-time proponent of the freedom to have one's own damn opinions without being forced into the spotlight and being publicly harassed.
pioneering entrepreneur Baroness Lane-Fox
Who?
The Lastminute.com founder
What?
You have not established who the fuck this person is, what they fuck they've done, or why the fuck I should care.
I'm going to assume it's some egotistical rich busybody that has achieved nothing of significance by their own hand and is looking for some more ego stroking.
Founded the aforementioned Internet business which was successful long enough for her to get rich from an IPO and subsequent takeover. Has only done this once so we don't know if she understood what she was doing or just got lucky with the right idea at the right time (probably just got lucky).
Unfortunately the British Government assumed this must mean she knew what she was doing and rewarded her with a place in the House of Lords. This is a permanent, for-life position so we're stuck with her for some time. It's quite difficult to remove someone from the House of Lords, even getting convicted and serving a prison sentence for perjury and perverting the course of justice doesn't seem to be enough to get someone removed.
So she has achieved something of significance but maybe only by luck. Otherwise you're pretty much on target.