If anyone asks what the greatest human invention in the second half of the twentieth century is, it is definitely the Internet. Through the virtual information network, the planet has truly become an interconnected village. People of different races, different skin colours, and different faiths can instantly speak and exchange information on the Internet. But have you discovered that in recent years, the Internet has been filled with a lot of vulgar, violent, and boring information, they have begun to become the mainstream of the mass Internet. Some people have predicted that the next century, the world will enter the second Middle Ages. Why does this take place now?Let us review the two stages of Internet first :
In the first two decades of the Internet development, that is, in the PC era, people who have access to the Internet are generally highly educated and are in the elites of society, especially those represented by programmers who use the Internet as a variety of experimental fields. Therefore, the Internet world at that time was relatively pure, and more embodied in instrumentality and experimentation. The Internet, like telegraph and telephone, has significantly promoted the productivity and evolution of human society. People who have no access to the Internet look forward to the magical Internet life as they yearn for heaven. This is the very first stage.
Since Steve Jobs defined the smartphone, the Internet has entered the civilian era, and the number of Internet users worldwide has expanded rapidly. The voices of the first generation of aborigines represented by programmers were drowned in the ocean of the common people. The Internet is no longer a pure paradise, but a black and white place that completely inherits the real world. Except for a small group of people who work for work or for self-realisation, most people work for a better life. In the way of life, there is no obvious difference between modern people and primitive people. In addition to the reproduction, life is flooded of singing and dancing. The only difference is the place of the event from the original jungle to the virtual space. The Internet has entered an era of entertainment.
In the process of entertainment, we find that the irrational voice on the Internet often overshadows the appeal of reason; the spread of vicious events is often easier to search than the good ones; gossip news is far more heated than academic discussion. Abandoning the judgment of good and evil, I classify information into positive information, neutral information, and negative information. It stands to reason that in the statistical sense, the world is finally regression, and there can be no significant deviation. So what is the cause of the negative shift in information? This is determined by the following two characteristics of negative information.
The first is the efficiency of transmission. Let’s make a small analogy. Originally in real society, such as in a community, the efficiency of negative information dissemination is higher than positive information. We can imagine that the thief incident in the neighbours must be faster and wider than the companion of the neighbours. This is driven by human curiosity, gloating, and jealous. The wide-ranging circulation of information has little difference in the spread efficiency of the three types of information in the era of no Internet because of geographical barriers and time delay, and has not reached its own speed limit. Through the catalysis of the Internet, we can think that the spread of these three kinds of information has reached the limit of their own “community spread” infinitely, so there is a phenomenon that negative information drives out positive information. Negative information is more efficient than the other two types. This discussion is based on propagation under a single source of information.
The second is the cost of copying. In addition to the high efficiency of negative information, the cost of copying is extremely low. As the same example of the neighbours above, the thief of the neighbour’s house was not caught, and it would be easy for people to imitate it. However, it is costly to learn from the children of neighbours and finally win the prize. It is not cost-effective. Therefore, the imitation and replication efficiency of negative information may be viral in the general public. Coupled with the herding effect, the mentality of the masses has been negatively biased. This is extremely harmful to the sustainable development of a society. Why the DIDI drivers raped female passengers happens frequently, because people with such a tendency can gather together through the network, teaching each other, discussing their experiences, and this motivation is far greater than academic discussion on the Internet. This discussion illustrates that negative sources of information can mimic fission during the course of transmission.
How to effectively overcome this problem is an urgent one to be solved? If he is a legal expert, he will think that it is necessary to strengthen the rule of law on the Internet; if he is a technology expert, he will consider how to screen and block negative information; if he is a politician, he may use all the information that is beneficial to himself, whether positive or Negative. Ass determines the head, since you stand in your own perspective, you will propose or use different rules. And I only talk about general methodology, that is reducing the efficiency of the transmission of negative information and increasing the cost of copying.
Propagation is a node. This one-to-one transit node is a personal individual. Improving the quality of citizens, although impossible to completely blocking or cutting off the negative information dissemination chain, can greatly reduce the speed of communication. If the propagation speed is controlled within a certain range, the negative information will decay rapidly in a small range over time. The second is to increase non-negative information in the unit area by diluting the negative information density. Because the information transmission in a certain area is a three-dimensional network, if the information transmission path is occupied by non-negative information for a long time, the propagation time of the negative information will be reduced accordingly, and it can play the same role, just like The ball control of both sides in the football match. Here is just an example. Following this line, you can think of many methods. For example, adopting mandatory legal measures for malicious information, such as strengthening the credit information system, and so on. Of course, not everyone is a bad person. Some people just vent their emotions on the Internet that they can’t vent in reality. This is also an environmental pollution to the Internet. Therefore, by levying a speech pollution tax, people can pay for it online. This can be easily done in the era of artificial intelligence.
This article is not intended to suggest a systematic solution.,since I am not an expert in this field. I just want to call on the Internet to face up to the negative evolution of Internet information in a timely manner. Don’t let the Internet society falling into an irrational atmosphere for a long time, and finally affecting the sustainable development of the real society.
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