A Deeper Dive into the Health of the Internet

The Mozilla Foundation recently put out its 2019 Internet Health Report, and I kept meaning to dive in a little deeper to understand some of the trends of online activity, if only to better comprehend the world in which my young students are moving into (or are already immersed into).

You can access the report, too. They analysis focuses on some main areas:

•  privacy and security,
• decentralization,
• openness,
• digital inclusion
• web literacy.

Each of these sections has a series of short pieces on subtopics. I dug deeper into the sections and explored some of the following articles:

• Who Babysits Your Children’s Data?
• Breaking Free of the Addiction Machine
• Recognizing the Bias of Artificial Intelligence
• Affordability and the Internet of the World
• Technology’s Inhumane Underbelly
• Deepfakes Are Here — Now What?
• Show Me My Data
• How Do Big Tech Companies Make Their Money?

The study also makes three key policy suggestions for moving forward to a better Internet:

• Give local governments and organizations more control over the Internet as they are more apt to have individual experiences and the public good in mind
• Revamp the whole way advertising is delivered in view of how surveillance and psychological tools for hooking people into games and apps has taken root in so many advertising design elements
• Purposefully consider the rise of AI through the lens of ethics and responsibility

Overall, the report surfaces some positive trends around privacy and responsibility, but also notes a continuing worry about censorship and the coming AI innovations on the horizon. I found some elements of the report intriguing, and worth a deeper dive, as it seems to provide information and balance, too.

Peace (inside the net),
Kevin