Tools and Weapons: The Promise and The Peril of the Digital Age

by Brad Smith

People seek out online groups of like-minded people that replicate communities that have always characterized human society. These groups in turn become more connected but less open, choosing their preferred channel and the people they want to interact with. They share information based only on a single vantage point. As in the real world, people can be quick to believe the worst about others, especially people they perceive as different from them. People’s defense mechanisms start to kick in. Idealism, in short, collides with human nature. Who figured this out and capitalized on it before anyone else? It was people who, like the Estonians, had lived their lives under a combination of repression and freedom, perhaps able to appreciate this dynamic more quickly than others—the Estonians’ neighbors across the Russian border. And who were the last to wake up? Idealistic Americans on the west coast of the United States who had lived their entire lives in freedom.