PANDORA’S BOX
Another giant in social media is Evan Williams. He is a co-creator of Blogger and a Twitter founder, where he is the largest stockholder—no small credentials. A New York Times article labels him “the guy who opened up Pandora’s box,” and said, “Until he came along, people had few places to go with their overflowing emotions and wild opinions, other than writing a letter to the newspaper or haranguing the neighbors.” When asked how he thinks it is going, “‘I think the internet is broken,’ he says. He has believed this for a few years, actually. But things are getting worse. ‘And it’s a lot more obvious to a lot of people that it’s broken.’”
The New York Times article goes on to explain, “People are using Facebook to showcase suicides, beatings and murder, in real time. Twitter is a hive of trolling and abuse that it seems unable to stop. Fake news, whether created for ideology or profit, runs rampant.”
Ev, as he is often called, has been there. He is what most people consider wildly successful, but the question should be asked: Is he happy? “After fame and fortune come regrets. Mr. Williams is trying to fix some things. So, in different ways, are Google and Facebook, and even Twitter. This is a moment for patches and promises. The trouble with the internet, Mr. Williams says, is that it rewards extremes. Say you’re driving down the road and see a car crash. Of course you look. Everyone looks. The internet interprets behavior like this to mean everyone is asking for car crashes, so it tries to supply them.” He went on to confess, “‘I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information and ideas, the world is automatically going to be a better place,’ Mr. Williams says. ‘I was wrong about that’” (Streitfield, David. “‘The Internet Is Broken’: @ev Is Trying to Salvage It,” NYTimes.com, May 20, 2017).