security meetup:

The Podium

The Internet - A Blessing And A Curse

Daniel Adolfsson

9/29/20256 min read

The timeline

During my life I've seen the internet take on different forms during its different stages of maturity. From the early 2000s when it was a full wild west, when many didn't know what to use it for. I might be wearing some really comfy pair of rose tinted glasses, but a big part of me misses the old internet. I miss the time when the internet was something you logged on to, spent some time, and then logged off to partake in things IRL. The freedom of being able to be someone else, and escape the hardships of the real world. Live as an alter ego for a short period of time. I remember sitting on forums which were focused on particular interests, getting to know others who shared them. Ordinary people organizing their own leagues in Counter-Strike 1.6, Quake and so on. Not to make money, but because they loved it. Making friends across the globe and learning about other cultures by simply talking to others. There were no strings attached. If you vibed, you vibed. Otherwise you just kept looking. There wasn’t anything tying you to your online avatar anyways. I wasn’t Daniel, I was whoever I wanted to be.

I vividly remember chatting over MSN Messenger. Getting spammed with nudges that kept the windows shaking. Constantly being set to busy to avoid the notification sounds. The amount of time spent in those chats all through the nights. Sharing pics, youtube videos and so on. My computer and the internet was my safe space as a teenager. It was the greatest form of escapism that I had ever encountered. Growing up in a tiny village in the middle of the forest, it was my way of fighting the isolation I’d otherwise would have experienced.

In contrast to all the different small sites of those days, today's internet is for the most part centralized among a few big actors such as Meta, Amazon and Google. It feels like the internet is real life. If it isn't posted to social media, did it really happen? Are people the ones who sit in the shower crying about their economic struggles, or are they the ones that sit in the sun on a terrace sipping on a drink? One of them is certainly more visible on social media than the other. And these days I barely have any interactions with other people I don’t already know on the internet. I feel like I just interact with the algorithms.

The next generation

It saddens me hearing about young boys and girls feeling like they don't belong for not fitting in to the polished lives being portrayed by influencers, but at the same time I'm extremely grateful for the internet being able to supply a place for these same kids to find one another and develop their social circles and find likeminded people. At the same time it's kind of scary how quickly these circles can become echo chambers. Where people's world views aren't being challenged by meeting others that have a different perspective. A big part of this is the algorithms that the big social media platforms have implemented. They feed you more of the same, which in turn can take some dark turns.

Through normal innocent childhood curiosity, children want to learn about themselves, their surroundings, life and all that it entails. If they look up some sensitive content, the algorithm sees this and keeps feeding them more of it. Even though it might just have been a fleeting curiosity. This could easily create a negative spiral where they get bombarded with questionable content that in no way should be consumed at their age, and definitely not in those amounts. Differing views become hidden and what they see can easily become their “truth”. To understand ourselves, we need to question ourselves. We need to get multiple perspectives to be able to decipher what is actually the case. Instead of this, the feed gets narrowed down to a simple one-sided perspective that doesn’t get questioned.

There is no doubt in my mind that we need to have a real conversation about children and the internet. As society functions today, we can't keep them off it. But how can we try to make sure that their experience isn't scarring them for life? I don't want to control the internet to the point where we stifle people's ability to share knowledge and thoughts. I want each one to have a chance to make their voice heard, no matter where they're from. As the basis of a functioning democracy is the ability for the people to gather knowledge. A public that doesn’t know what is going on can’t make a decision that is based on facts.

The legislations

The Online Safety Act is a legislation that was passed in 2023, but has been implemented part by part since then. This July one particular part of the legislation took effect. Where they require those in charge of websites and applications that are accessible in the UK to put in safeguards to make sure that children aren’t able to access harmful content. To make sure of this, users will have to prove that they are of age by verifying their identity. What critics point out about this is that “harmful” is extremely vague, the requirement of identification could impose huge risks on the privacy of the users and the dangers of having privately owned third party companies handling a massive amount of personally identifiable information. Look at the Tea-app leak as an example. How can we be sure that something like that doesn’t happen to these companies?

Chat Control on the other hand is being pushed in the EU, and focuses mainly on end-to-end encryption. With applications offering this kind of encryption having to scan the contents of messages before they are encrypted. Which negates the entire purpose of encryption. But there have been clauses added to the proposal that says that certain groups (such as government accounts) are exempt from this mass surveillance. The justification for implementing this is to be able to crack down on Child Sexual Abuse Material being shared through these services.

These legislations make me worried about the effect they might have on the ability to share opinions and even facts online. To illustrate my point, look at Wikipedia. They're voicing their worries about the Online Safety Act being antithetical to their entire structure. Having to verify the ID of each of their contributors runs the risk of alienating contributors from parts of the world where freedom of speech isn't a given. It might even be a risk to their life. There is also the question of sovereignty of countries across the internet. As there is an ongoing legal battle between Ofcom (The British body in charge of making sure the industry is compliant) and 4chan about the topic. As Ofcom has demanded that 4chan comply with the legislation or pay fines even though they are based in the US and not in the UK, and has no operations in the UK. But have visitors from there.

The consequences

One part that feels like it doesn’t get stated enough, is the fact that requiring you to ID yourself to be able to access content risks becoming a huge friction to entry. Have you ever clicked on a YouTube video, and a 15 seconds unskippable advertisement has begun playing? Have you ever decided not to watch the actual video because of this? I know that I have. And the same thing might happen if we introduce friction to accessing information. In the long run, I fear that it will further centralize the internet among the big actors. Since you’d only have to verify your age once to access their services. But if you want to access information from other sources, you’d have to verify it several more times.

Organic grassroot sites that focus on fostering a small community among a niche interest, might also be forced to verify its users' identities. Which would be a huge cost to just a small group of hobbyists. If we circle back to the beginning, those forums and esports competitions might not get a chance to exist today.

Setting up protection for our children and finding ways to make their lives better is always commendable, but at what cost? Will we make a society that is worth living in for our children? I don't have the answers for how to tackle this gigantic issue. But what I have is a wish. A wish for serious debate to take place about what can, and what should be done. Through this post I want to do what I can to push this issue into the spotlight. Through my work in the field of cybersecurity in the future, I want to contribute to the internet being a better place. If that is by just starting a conversation, that is what I’ll do.

I fear that if we control the internet to break the curse, we also take away what makes it a blessing.

Daniel Adolfsson

2025-09-29