For all its wonders, the internet does have some dark sides. Trolls. YouTube comments. 4chan. But as YouTuber Tom Scott explains by showing us what a completely offence-free internet dystopia would look like, even the lowliest of bridge-dwellers are a defining feature of online life.
Scott’s ‘Bubble’ — a fictitious, perfect, personalised screening device for the internet — isn’t intended as a satirical takedown of internet filtering (at least, I don’t think). Rather, it’s a thought experiment about how our relationship with the internet hinges so much on the things we hate.
I certainly wouldn’t want to use an internet full of self-congratulatory yes men; echo chambers are good for nothing but reinforcing your own preconceived ideas. And the Bubble scares me a little with the accuracy — the pitch video apes Silicon Valley so perfectly, and the rhetoric hits just a little too close to home to laugh straight off. Never die, internet lowlifes. [Tom Scott]