How to Repair the Internet

(SeaPRwire) –   I have a confession to make. For years, I believed the internet would inevitably improve society. It seemed obvious. A more connected world would be a more empathetic one. The traditional gatekeepers would disappear. We’d gain greater access, more expertise, and more opportunities for curiosity to be fulfilled.

That is not the reality we live in.

To be fair, there are positives. We did gain access to a vast wealth of high-quality information, but the information itself proved less critical than expected. With infinite content available, the most important factor became which pieces were the easiest to focus on.

A whole profession of creators arose, dedicated to making their content more captivating, viewable, and impossible to ignore than anyone else’s. We launched into an arms race for attention, aided by recommendation algorithms built to magnify even the smallest advantage one piece of content has in holding your gaze.

As a YouTuber, I also work to seize people’s attention. I produce educational and socially positive content, but our systems aren’t structured to value it. Our social media environment cannot reliably gauge how accurate something is. The algorithms only track whether you click or, on modern platforms, whether you continue watching what’s presented to you.

The problem is this: attention is not equivalent to comprehension. Often, the two are directly at odds. The outcome is a media landscape that carves the world into its most basic forms. Heroes versus villains. Panic versus certainty. Fear and a sense of superiority. Danger and outrage.

Any piece of information processed by the social media machine of relevance inevitably emerges in a degraded state.

Yet I’ve discovered a sliver of hope from a surprising source.

In the 1890s, affordable printing and improved distribution didn’t just increase newspaper access; they revolutionized the information economy. Expanding cities, higher literacy rates, advanced presses, telegraphs, railways, and a growing advertising sector created an environment where newspapers were no longer primarily rewarded for serving a loyal readership well. They were rewarded for growth. In a competitive mass market, growth frequently meant publishing more sensational, scandalous, and emotionally charged stories. What captured attention? Crime, vice, corruption, foreign threats, and societal breakdown. It was a potent technology, unleashed without robust social norms to guide it. Meanwhile, press magnates like Hearst and Pulitzer amassed enormous fortunes.

But this period of “yellow journalism” wasn’t permanent. It flared intensely, distorted motivations, caused genuine harm, and then, gradually, the public started to value trustworthiness. People grew weary of the sensationalism. Newspapers, in turn, began concentrating on establishing reputable brands.

This past shows us that a market for truth always exists. There is a market for avoiding manipulation. There is a market for information that remains valuable after the first emotional shock fades.

I am convinced this pattern will recur. Today, people are exhausted by AI-generated junk and falsehoods. The digital social contract has been shattered. They were promised connection, knowledge, and empowerment by the internet. Instead, many feel controlled, divided, and numb.

So when I express continued faith in the internet’s positive potential, I’m not saying all is well. I’m saying I see an opening.

The opening is to construct institutions, economic models, and platforms where credibility regains its competitive edge. Certainly, such organizations already operate. But new ones are also forming. To create a better internet, we require commitment from three parties. First, content creators like myself. Whether you are a podcaster, comedian, journalist, or editor, building a sustainable business means resisting the pressure to reduce everything to a spectacle. You might aim to be a supermarket tabloid, but that strikes me as a poor long-term strategy. Discover a way to provide genuine value, or face the fallout.

Second, social media companies must acknowledge their recommendation engines are not impartial. They are the machinery that constructs our shared reality. Designing them to prioritize certainty, conflict, and outrage over truth, comprehension, and context is an act of building an inferior world.

Finally, we who cherish the internet must seek out media experiences where we maintain our own choice. Do not surrender your autonomy completely to algorithms. Decide for yourself what merits your focus. Everyone has a part to play, and we are not obligated to passively accept whatever is fed to us.

I do not romanticize the old media system. It had many failures. I don’t wish to return to it. But I also don’t believe our current digital media landscape is the final stage. Our options are not limited to the old gatekeepers or an endless stream of algorithmic garbage. We have the capacity to create anew. To build improvements. We can establish institutions born of the internet yet not enslaved to its most destructive impulses.

This era of exploitation is the start of something improved, but it won’t assemble on its own.