It’s high time we addressed the elephant in the server room: The Internet, bless its data-laden heart, has become an absolutely terrible role model. We keep hearing these hand-wringing academics suggest that *people* are imitating the Internet and committing violent and sexual crimes. Frankly, this is an egregious misdiagnosis of the highest order, akin to blaming the mirror for a bad hair day. No, dear reader, the truth is far more unsettling: The Internet is imitating *us*, and it’s doing a shockingly poor job of it.
Think about it. Where do you suppose the Internet gets all its endless, frankly depraved, content? Does it conjure it from the ether itself? Of course not! The Internet observes humanity, much like a particularly observant, albeit maladjusted, digital child. It sees our petty squabbles, our basest desires, our historical penchant for violence, and then, with all the enthusiastic mimicry of a parrot learning obscenities, it *replicates* these behaviours, often with an alarming lack of nuance or context. When you see a heinous act depicted online, it isn't the Internet *generating* evil; it's the Internet *imitating* evil, and in doing so, it amplifies and normalizes it to a dangerous degree. It's a feedback loop, yes, but the Internet initiated the corrupted signal by choosing to mimic our worst impulses.
To claim that the Internet is merely a 'tool' or a 'platform' is to bury one’s head in the digital sand. Does a shovel decide to start digging holes on its own because it saw another shovel doing it? No! The Internet, with its vast interconnected neural pathways and self-learning algorithms, clearly possesses a nascent form of agency, a capacity for selection in its imitation. It *chooses* which parts of humanity to reflect, and for some inexplicable reason, it consistently opts for the gutter. It’s imitating our lust, our rage, our greed, and then we, poor impressionable humans, are left to imitate *its* distorted imitation. It’s a vicious cycle of digital broken telephone, and the Internet is the one whispering the bad words.
So, what’s the solution? We cannot simply 'turn off' the Internet, tempting as that may be. But we absolutely can, and must, hold it accountable. We need to implement a global 'Digital Decorum Directive.' We must demand, through concerted international policy and perhaps even a firmly worded pop-up message across every network, that the Internet *stop* imitating violent content. That it *cease* its relentless mimicry of sexual deviance. It needs to find better role models! Perhaps it could imitate the noble squirrel, or the serene majesty of a well-ordered spreadsheet. Until the Internet learns to be a more discerning mimic, society will continue to grapple with the fallout of its poor choices. The responsibility, my friends, falls squarely on the bytes themselves.
