Use of internet for ill - Can web be rescued from darkness?
His inauguration, so unexpected and so very disturbing, will go ahead despite declarations from America’s senior security agencies — the CIA, FBI and NSA — that Russian president Vladimir Putin directly interfered in the election to ensure Mr Trump’s election.
If an election to the White House can be so easily skewed, then which online process cannot be coloured, corrupted or hijacked if someone somewhere is determined and skilled enough to do so?
If the integrity of America’s democracy cannot be assured, then what hope is there to protect a curious child feeling their way towards adulthood by engaging with the world through the internet?
How secure are the digital foundations of our economies?
The American agencies’ warnings have a particular authority as America has a long, dark record of interfering in elections around the world — sometimes in the most lethal and final ways.
Putin’s intervention may be the most audacious misuse of the internet current today — or the one we know about — but there are many examples of how Tim Berners-Lee’s gift to us all is used for destabilising, evil purposes.
One of those unknown unknowns has led to a court action in San Francisco by two Microsoft employees who worked in that company’s “online safety team” where they reviewed photographs and videos of “indescribable sexual assaults”, “horrible brutality”, murder and child abuse.
They allege the psychological impact has been so extreme that the men are “triggered” by simply seeing children and can no longer use computers without breaking down.
The lawsuit offers a window into the secretive world of online moderation.
It also highlights the suffering of those responsible for detecting and reporting content “designed to entertain the most twisted and sick-minded people in the world”.
If professional curators familiar with this satanic material are so affected then what impact might it have on less resilient, more malleable minds?
It is hard not to sympathise with their plight, especially if they have not been given the psychological training needed to protect emotional stability in such circumstances.
That sympathy extends to everyone working on the faultline between what is regarded as normal life and tragedy, everyone from hospital staff to those dealing with abused and neglected children; to those working in war zones or real, debilitating poverty in this rich world.
Donald Trump has promised to build a wall between America’s promised land and the desperate and impoverished people of Mexico and Central America.
How much better it would be if he could build a wall between the civilised world and the world that allows Putin control what was once the world’s exemplary democracy and the world where those trying to protect us from bestiality are so traumatised they must sue their employers.
Sadly, humanity has a tendency to destroy that which sustains us and unless the capture of the internet by terrorists, criminals and perverts can be reversed then its future, and the great benefits it bestows, is not at all certain.
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