"A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma"

John Aster lives here ...

This pix indirectly relates to the fact the net's becoming an ad infested surveillance platform as said connected utility of the world is too important for the power elite and governments to allow it to remain free for all to use without being spied upon or censored as needs warrant.

Media ecologist Andrey Mir argues that the internet has transformed from a tool of liberation to a mechanism of social control. Mir traces this shift across successive web eras — from the 1990s and 2000s, when the internet granted individuals unprecedented access to information and self-expression, to the heightened regulation we see today. Rather than seeking to “fix” this evolution, Mir suggests individuals must decide whether to resist or adapt to a digitally regulated world.

Twenty years ago, the internet was a medium liberating people from state control. Now, the internet is increasingly seen as a threat triggering calls to restore state control over online behavior. The latest twist in this trend is the growing demand to criminally prosecute both users and platforms for unacceptable speech or behavior. How did we get here? 

Web 1.0: The global library with free access

The earliest version of the web, Web 1.0, granted people far greater individual access to information. This alone challenged the old order in which elites controlled the mechanisms of “manufacturing consent” through news media, education, and entertainment. 

Uncontrolled flows of information undermined the elites’ monopoly over knowledge. But information alone was not the key. It was not the content but the very mode of access — the medium — that began to undermine authority. A close analogy: After the printing press made the Bible affordable to the masses, it wasn’t the verses of the Bible that triggered the Protestant Reformation, but rather the ability of a layman to read the Bible independently of a priest’s choice, find inconsistencies, and question the Church’s authority. The affordability of access to the Bible made it clear, for the first time, that the Church’s perspective is just that: a view. 

Web 5.0

The idea of Web 5.0 paints a future where platforms operate not only as businesses but also as proxies for the state, employing their power over users on behalf of governments in exchange for the license to keep doing business. The combination of censorship, algorithmic control, and the criminalization of online behavior will only grow more sophisticated as digital platforms continue to evolve and converge with the state. Both political elites and corporations seek greater control; the growing digital platformization of users/citizens will provide more opportunities to gain it.

Web 6.0

In the near future, AI rules as cheaply generated misinformation runs riot, kept under the control by the deep state, where "truth" becomes an entity residing in  "A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma"

Charles Thatcher is a typical citizen in a future hyper-capitalist society. He is the property of Ackerman Brothers Securities Corporation and in this society, every commodity, even air, is sold on the market. The population is kept under control with horrific punishments delivered by a corrupt, profit-driven police service.

Sound familiar?