The Internet: unifying or divisive?

Someone recently told me of the comments of an elderly woman, who shared her perspectives about how the Internet must be a tool of the devil because of the threat it represented to decency, families and communication. This got me thinking — she’s right about the threat, and even right about it being a tool that can be used for evil, but what is she missing? What conclusions should we draw from her perspective?

I’ve had a passion for interacting with people online since 1979, when having a conversation online meant watching the characters scroll by. During those 32 years, I’ve witnessed significant change in the lives of hundreds of individuals as they go online, which change has had varying degrees of impact on their families, companies, organizations and even entire societies. Many spend a significant amount of time on the Internet and can’t imagine life without it, while others eschew the Internet, seeing it somehow as a threat.

So which is it? In a family, community or society, does Internet participation tend to be a good and unifying force, or is it an evil and divisive force? Let’s examine this important question and the ways to tip the balance in favor of the good in using the Internet wisely.

The Internet: divisive and destructive

Unfortunately, cyberspace is a reflection of the real world, no matter how much good there may be. It is also difficult to avoid the divisive and destructive. Just as my ancestors faced the dark side of humanity because they were pioneering new frontiers spiritually and physically, so have I, as a pioneer in cyberspace, faced intense personal challenges dealing with the dark side of cyberspace.

One period and set of experiences in particular stands out for me as emblematic of the divisive power that can be yielded by those with hidden agendas and a lack of scruples when they go online and use the cloak of anonymity to seek power.

From 1992 to 1996, I was representing IBM’s Personal Software Products Division online. Being available online to interact with customers and the media was my primary job. During those dramatic and fateful four years, the World Wide Web exploded onto the scene while CompuServe, Prodigy and the milieu of bulletin board systems worldwide began to decline in prominence and importance. The online culture was immature — I compared it in my 1997 book, “Cyberspace: The Human Dimension,” to the wild, wild West.

Also during this time, IBM and Microsoft were engaged in the war for dominance on the desktop. Microsoft had Windows, the less secure and more crash-prone choice; and IBM had OS/2, the technologically superior but more demanding desktop operating system. Online, I was targeted by Microsoft, mostly because I had started an online group of OS/2 enthusiasts named Team OS/2 and had converted a number of key influencers to the superiority of OS/2 (which, ironically, Microsoft had helped IBM develop before their split in 1991).

Elizabeth Lesly Stevens wrote about what happened next in her report on Microsoft’s public relations machine, "Making Bill," published in Brill's Content in September 1998. “The (Microsoft) evangelists jumped on the outgunned Whittle. ‘It’s outrageous how IBM sent him in with a pea shooter,' recalls (Rick) Segal. 'We were going to cream him, pick him apart, slaughter him.' ”

John C. Dvorak, in his PC Magazine column, said, “I was an OS/2 user at the time and watched Microsoft destroy IBM’s Dave Whittle, who was … the only person from IBM who would stand up for the product. … In forum after forum, you’d find these clowns jumping all over Dave Whittle and his lone voice trying to get people to look at OS/2 objectively ….”

Now I’m not looking for sympathy here — I’m simply trying to make the point that I’ve personally witnessed how the Internet can be used in viciously divisive ways. After leaving Microsoft, Segal later called it “an attempted character assassination.” It was a bitter pill to swallow to realize that so many others meant to do me harm and were using my own naive idealism about online communications and human nature to ambush me.

In 2001, during a visit to Duke University where I had been invited to address a gathering of guest journalists from around the world, a Russian opinion leader asked me what gave me the right to assert that Microsoft had behaved unethically and crossed moral lines as a company during their character assassination campaign. “They won, didn’t they?” the man questioned. My response was that a liar who’s never caught or tried is still a liar. If we let the outcomes determine morality, then only the strong survive and civilization collapses into war and chaos. The same is true online.

In the past decade, there has been an increased recognition in the importance of accountability, in relation to identity and personal behavior, in making the Web serve constructive purposes. In fact, the relative Internet anonymity of the 1990s has become the social web of the last decade, where personal identity and credibility are at the heart of what makes many sites — such as Facebook, PayPal, eBay and Linkedin — so helpful and valuable.

In contrast, on the Web, furtive behaviors can be as destructive as aggressive behaviors. When writing my book, my New York-based editor took issue with my portrayal of pornography as harmful and divisive and therefore evil. Even though I quoted studies supporting the assertion that pornography was linked to violence against women, most reviewers, whose heads must have been buried in the sand, took me to task for, as one reviewer decried, “some not-so-subtle pushing of his views in an otherwise first-rate discussion of vice on the Net.”

In one example of the damage that can be done, five years ago, a young man I admire came to me for guidance. I was stunned to learn that this church leader and model father of two was being divorced. To his credit, he shouldered all of the responsibility, admitting an addiction to readily available online pornography that he had been unable to shake. What had seemed to all the world as a near-perfect family was being irreparably damaged by the ease with which porn can be accessed online when coupled with one young man’s ruinously flawed moral discipline.

Clearly, the Internet can be an enabling factor in the creation of yet more trouble and destruction in an already troubled and divided world. But then again, the same thing could have been said about any technological advancement, including the advent of the printing press, the automobile or television. Any tool can be used for harm; what matters is the intent and skill of the person using the tool.

The Internet: unifying and edifying

The potential for good that comes with any technology is where our focus should reside.

In April 1987, while involved in IBM’s launch of the Personal System/2 product line, I wrote in my journal, “My vision of the future is one where communication via computers enhances our ability to maintain contact with each other and achieve a wide variety of noble purposes including strengthening family ties, education and even spreading the gospel.”

Clearly, in less than a generation, the Internet and wireless communications have made my 1987 “vision” seems almost prosaic — more like a statement of the obvious than the radical prediction it seemed to be at the time. Consider the situation in 1987, though, where almost all long-distance communications were either via letter or a long-distant phone call. The Web hadn’t yet been invented and the Internet was far too technical to be generally useful. E-mail was largely limited to intercompany communications because e-mail systems weren’t bridged by the Internet as they are now. Handheld cell phones and texting? More science fiction than fact-based expectation.

Within four years of that entry in my journal, I was living and fulfilling my vision, developing online relationships through my online public relations work at IBM. At first, IBM thought I would be interacting only with technology enthusiasts and other geeks in a few virtual communities. However, many national and trade journalists thought it novel that IBM would have a dedicated online representative and began approaching me for help and comments. So I could interact with them and still be in compliance with IBM’s Business Conduct Guidelines that forbade speaking for IBM online, my management hurriedly had me take IBM’s media relations seminar that was required for executives before they could deal with the media directly.

Today, over 90 percent of Americans use the Internet or have cell phones, and presumably a majority of the 10 percent of those who don’t are probably in rest homes or in prison (not that the two should be equated). And almost everyone is able to maintain contact with almost everyone. The challenge now is not how to connect or maintain contact, which has become simple and therefore ubiquitous — but rather how to manage the cultural complexity of being able to be in touch with so many people. Relationships have never been easier to establish, maintain and even enjoy.

Even inter-generational relationships are benefitting significantly. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal was subtitled: “Forget the Sunday night phone call. Grandparents and grandkids are connecting — and connected — as never before.”

The World War II generation and baby boomers alike have learned and are learning to use the same technologies they created to stay in touch with children and grandchildren, who more often than not take those technologies for granted. The children and grandchildren, in turn, are helping parents and grandchildren to learn and use new tools created by their generation, such as Facebook and Twitter.

For example, I posted an update on Facebook last year about how I was excited to have a new grandson and was preparing to drive to Cheyenne to meet him. My oldest son promptly let me know that he didn’t appreciate learning about it from me and that I had breached the social media rights of his sister, my daughter, the mother, by posting the news on Facebook before she or her husband had. Oops! I’m more careful now, but I still find Facebook to be a valuable way to stay abreast with the important happenings in the lives of family and friends. I simply replaced the time I used to spend reading the newspaper with catching up on Facebook.

The fact that almost every religion have so fully embraced the Internet to accomplish so many worthy aims is convincing evidence that the Internet has come of age and is ready for an ever-maturing role in achieving much good and harmony in the world.

So even though the sensationalistic (and often negative) impacts of the Internet on individuals, government, politics and international affairs draw most of the media attention these days, I can personally attest to the tremendous good that can be found online. Without doubt, the Internet has been and will continue to be a tremendously unifying force for individuals and families, as well as communities, companies, society and even nations.

Winning the battle of good vs. evil

So what’s wrong with what Sister Brown had to say about the Internet being a tool for evil? Simply that it only tells half the story, and half the story is a half-truth. Anyone who even attempts to separate the Internet from the world we live in or even from their own life is playing the role of Jonah in the battle of good and evil.

The world is full of evil. It’s also full of good. The same is true with the Internet. We’re told to fight the good fight in helping good to conquer evil, which is true whether online or not. Yet this battle in cyberspace is ultimately much different from the worldly wars and battles. In the cyberspace battle, our aim is not to hurt or destroy our enemies but rather to simply help everyone and anyone. We fight these battles daily by the choices we make.

As the philosopher Cecil said, “Every year of my life I grow more convinced that it is wisest and best to fix our attention on the beautiful and the good, and dwell as little as possible on the evil and the false.”

We can focus on our sphere of influence, beginning with that over which we have absolute control — our own beliefs and our objectives online. We can learn to share in ideas online, finding increased freedom as we learn more about ourselves and others and the roles we play — using careful reasoning and respect for others as a prerequisite for serious dialogue.

We can lobby companies for products and features consistent with our needs. We can band together with others to share experiences and views about those things that are good and helpful and beneficial and those things that are more likely to threaten our peace of mind and happiness.

We can seek to minimize the impact of wrongdoing and evil in our explorations of cyberspace by avoiding those areas there which are likely to be inconsistent with our own personal values and teach our children to do the same. We can use e-mail and other cyberspace communications technologies to our advantage in extending the range of our relationships and improving their quality.

We can participate in online dialogue and discussion carefully, choosing our communities with an eye to maximizing the value of the time we spend there. We can proactively choose those values that matter most to us and band together with others of like minds in order to seek social and government policy and change consistent with those values.

Ultimately, the world around us is what we make it. And that includes the Internet.

Dave Whittle is the founder and CEO of CoolHotNot (www.coolhotnot.com) and the author of "Cyberspace: The Human Dimension," and a technology expert since 1981, when he started Lloyd's Computers in the University Mall in Orem.

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