Executives from Facebook, Google and Twitter will testify before Congress November first about the role social media has come to play in elections.
Houston computer professor Chris Bronk says the internet was launched with lofty ideals of censor-free democracy.
“From the internet’s very beginning, once we blew it open to the commercial world it was, ‘Hands off. Let it develop.’ Well it’s developed now, and it’s made some people a lot of money. And the question is, who speaks for the public on this?” he asks KTRH News rhetorically.
Questions raised by Russian utilization, weaponization some call it, of social media to impact public opinion, social constructs and democratic elections is bringing that question front and center.
Bronk says he’s not sure today if the internet is enhancing democracy or damaging it. An uncensored internet is not the utopian society may have imagined it would become, and where we are stuck today is with the question, if there must be an internet censor, if we are going to limit the impact of “fake news,” who are we going to appoint to do it? Based on numbers, if Facebook was a nation, it would be the most populous country on the planet, ruled by Mark Zuckerberg. Are you okay with that?