My thoughts on the current interwebs.

(Inspired by sadgrl's manifesto. Go check it out!)

Hah, remember when people used the word "interwebs" when talking about the internet?

If you're under the age of thirteen, then probably not.

It's undeniable that the internet has changed - but has it changed for the better? Clearly not; instead of being a place to express your creativity and yourself as a person, it's now more of a competition where everyone tries to outdo eachother in terms of how many followers and interactions they have. All websites look the same now. You can go to ten different websites and they will all look the same in terms of layout and design. Google, Yahoo, AOL, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Livejournal, YouTube and Reddit are just some that come to mind. Today's internet is bland and boring.

The internet today

You could argue that "web design is evolving", but is it really evolution if it completely removes features that allow people to express themselves? Nowadays, websites collect data on what you react positively or negatively to in order to show you "relevant content" or "relevant ads" - that may not actually be relevant to you. By showing you content you like, websites ensure that you stay on the site for as long as possible (because, hey, it's content you like, and who doesn't like seeing things that interest them?), because they know that if they were to show you content you dislike, you'll get bored and will eventually stop using that site, and that's not what they want. Some websites are even specifically designed so that you have click different links to get to the page you want, and that means that you'll stay on the site longer so they can collect more data on you and show you ads based on your recent activity.

And most people don't even realise that.

Here's a website I recommend checking out if you're interested in learning more about advertisements: Should I block ads?

Why it sucks

Instead of being hobby or interest based, the internet has become a commercial place. Not only that, but the internet is now synonymous with the term "social media". The internet is now driven by censorship and monetisation. You are expected to know exactly what you can or cannot say from the very second you create an account on any platform. If you don't, you'll risk:

...with no way of recovering your account. Often, instead of telling you that you said or did something that goes against their terms of service, websites will hide you from search results and other people's feeds & notifications without notifying you. This is known as shadowbanning. When you are shadowbanned, people won't be able to look you up, and you will not show up in their notifications. This is a big issue considering that everything on the internet is competitive now, so if you're actively participating in "the big competition", people won't see your stuff. Not only that, but it completely ruins the point of social media because shadowbanning takes away the "social" from "social media". That's what sucks about social media nowadays - you're promised a place where you can express yourself freely and where you can socialise with others, you think "darn, I guess I'd better sign up then!" only for the service to take away both of those things it promised you'd get.

And by signing up, you are expected to know what you are consenting to - collection of data being one of the more major ones. For example, Twitter's Terms of Service directly states that "through your use of the Services you consent to the collection and use (as set forth in the Privacy Policy) of [the information you provide to them]". In my 6+ years of being on Twitter, I was never aware of this. Because it's never actually made clear when you first sign up, given that you don't read their ToS and Privacy Policy, contrary to what various websites might tell you. "We believe you should always know what data we collect from you and how we use it, and that you should have meaningful control over both." But you usually don't have control over either.

In fact, many websites nowadays want you to provide them with sensitive info that can be used to track your activity further; Twitter now requiring a phone number to make an account despite stating that you don't need one, Facebook requiring that you give your full birth name, and YouTube wanting you to provide them with your credit card, your driver's license or your passport - yes, PASSPORT - in order to verify your age. This is stupid. You shouldn't need to send such information to a website to verify your age, especially if your account was made a year or two after the service launched.

It seems that all the internet is today is just tracking, tracking, tracking. It wasn't like that in the earlier days of the web. This kind of stuff came in the early-mid 2000s. But at the same time, it allowed people to express themselves and the creativity, to build their own little corner of the internet, and it wasn't as driven by censorship and monetisation and tracking your activity as it is today. To see if the algorithm/s gathered correct information on me, I decided to go look through the interests section under Ads preferences. What I saw was many topics that I had never even come across, nor was I interested in 94% of what was on the list. Out of maybe over 100 topics, only 16 were correct. This goes to show that "relevant" content on your timeline is usually never relevant.

Today, most websites use algorithms. As stated on Wikipedia, an algorithm is "a finite sequence of well-defined, computer-implementable instructions, typically to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation." (Read more here.) This is to filter out "irrelevant content" (usually the content you would want to see) and to show you "relevant content" (typically the content you might find irrelevant).

Not only that, but when it comes to data collection, certain sites can pick up what you are talking about (i.e. "Oh, I wish I had [product]." or "I should look into buying [product] soon." or when you are talking about a popular application or program, etc etc) and based on that, you will get "relevant" ads. Here is an example of that from December 2020.

"Reviving" the old web

The good news is that creativity hasn't been entirely ripped out of our hands just yet.

While reviving the old web may just be near impossible considering that corporations simply do not care, you can still create your own website and make it look however you like. You can use Neocities, which is incredibly user friendly and with several helpful tutorials that can help you get started. Alternatively, you can use geocities.ws, but it's not as user friendly and is harder to navigate.

This page is under construction.