Since April of 2022, there are more than five billion current users on the internet, in other words, 63.1% of the world’s population. The internet was first introduced to the world in 1983 and has exploded in its use by nearly 170 million users per two years. Of the total online population, 4.7 billion of them use social media as their primary source of consumption on the internet. Additionally, China, India, and the United States are the world’s top three users on the internet. For example, China has a little more than a billion users while India has about 658 million users; however, a vast amount of the population in India and China are not on the Internet. While the internet has led to many surreal technological advancements such as communication, it is highly unregulated because of its relatively recent creation. Therefore, many problems stem from its low regulation and anonymity because of high intractability.
One of the most notable offenses on the internet are racial and gender based discrimination. Many people participate in discrimination online because they are aware that they can’t get caught and won’t face severe consequences. Of the every 1 in 4 people discriminated against, a high majority of them include minority groups such as black people and women. Many black kids are subject to racial discrimination and allow kids to express their racial ideology to others and convince others that racism is a normality on the internet. Additionally, every 1 in 10 Australian kid is a victim of cyberbullying, one of the most prominent offenses on the internet. Many children express modern cyberbullying through racism, sexism, sexual harassment, and homophobia.
Furthermore, data leaks and breaches are much more common now than ever because of the monetary gain that breachers can gain. Digital giants, or the large technology giants such as Google and Apple, invade our private lives, family life, and gather data to sell to private sector businesses. Although many of these giants are granted permission to collect data because of extensive terms and conditions and cookies that are perceived as meaningless. For instance, 67% of all Americans on the internet are unaware of what their data is being used for and even if it’s being used or sold. Of those Americans, 44% of them are exposed to customer information that has been breached. However, online users are not the only victims of data breaches because cryptocurrency companies have been large targets for hackers because of the large financial gain possible. For example, in 2022 Ronin, a large cryptocurrency platform, was hacked and breached for $600 million dollars worth of data and service. The hack was commenced by a North Korean hacker group that disguised themselves as job applicants while hacking remotely. Since the internet’s development, it has been estimated that $1.4 billion dollars has been lost and stolen from both public and private business by data breachers.
Another large problem found within the internet is the high occurrence of misinformation and fake news. Most of the fake news and misinformation is possible because nearly anyone can write and voice their opinions as a fact, tricking many others into falling victim to their lies. Because of so much information available to us, it has become an extremely difficult task in determining which information is somewhat true, true, or a complete fallacy. Once people see what they believe to be true but is actually false and spread it to others, this phenomenon is called the ripple effect and has brought 48% of internet users to become skeptical of all information on the internet. Moreover, children are the most susceptible to fall for misinformation due to their extensive reliance on social media for news. Furthermore, 33% of children believe that all social media stories are truthful and only 2% of the children on the internet have the critical literacy skills to determine whether or not they are reading the truth.