Good morning Ali,
The era of the citizen hoping to be protected by the government clearly ended a long while ago.
As regards to the way forward, it is encouraging that Zuckerberg has initiated significant changes at Facebook. This was done at great risk to their revenues making it all the more commendable. Google initiated major changes almost immediately after the US election. Twitter cannot afford to start the fight against bots and trolls because they are still struggling to produce profits.
This is where the issue is. Should we continue to rely on these companies to self regulate?
What about government regulation? Recent events in Kenya for instance have just confirmed that the option of Government regulation is a complete and absolute NO. I almost regret supporting the ICT practitioners Bill because I naively thought that we are now at a level where our institutions can be allowed to operate independently.
The other option and the most ideal to me is that we as the users of these platforms need to do our part. If something looks off, we need to raise awareness and push for the change that is required. We cannot always defer all the hard work to others and then expect them not to ever take advantage.
