City voices: One change that would make a substantial difference is to require social media platforms to enable users to see whether accounts are verified
IT was not supposed to be like this. Not long ago, the internet was expected to open up a brave new world of democratised information, empower citizen journalists, break down the barriers between the citizens and their representatives, open up new fields of discourse and generally improve our lives. It would sweep away the gatekeepers to and guardians of the powerful, the commentators, the insiders, those “in the know” and let us all see what is going on. And it sort of has. Most of us have in our pockets or handbags devices that can access almost the entirety of human knowledge and see people or events in real time on the other side of the world – or this week, on other worlds. No longer are we dependent upon people in far off stuffy newsrooms or smoke-filled clubs to decide for us what is news and what is not, we can see for ourselves and draw our own conclusions.