IN what was a challenging year for the world, the internet helped and harmed us like never before in 2020, according to a new study.

However, according to the open source software platform Mozilla, there are signs that a “backlash” against big tech promises to bear fruit after years of investigations into bad practices.

In its review of last year, Mozilla said 2020 had taught us the hard way that internet health impacts human health.

“To watch 2020 unfold on our screens was to watch the best and the worst of the internet amplified tenfold,” its vice-president of global programs, J Bob Alotta, told The National.

“Those of us fortunate to have access to high quality internet and devices felt the loss of connection to our friends and family and colleagues deeply, but we were able to maintain other kinds of contact. Unlike others who lost access to not only their support network, but to their education or livelihoods, and critical public health information, too.”

The health report examined some of the biggest issues playing out online, including the racial inequalities of data and algorithms and how gig work is trampling workers’ rights. It said the seven companies with consolidated power over the internet and its infrastructure – including Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook – had all seen “profits skyrocket and power increase” as the world’s dependency on big tech grew with pandemic lockdowns.

At the same time, Mozilla said politicians in many countries mounted legal challenges to anti-competitive and privacy-eroding practices. Tech employees increasingly raised their voices in protests over insufficient diversity, ethics and contracts with military and law enforcement bodies. More whistle-blowers had come forward and gig workers were pushing back against their “precarious” jobs.

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“The so-called ‘backlash’ against big tech now promises to bear fruit following years of extensive investigations into bad practices by social media platforms in particular, including rampant tracking, flawed content moderation, limited political ad transparency … algorithmic bias … and more,” said the report.

“Around the world, disinformation and hate speech was accelerated by both human action and algorithmic recommendations in ways that benefited groups with agendas to destabilise and polarise societies.”

The pandemic has also become another pretext for the censorship of independent journalism and increased surveillance.

“Writing the report in the middle of a global pandemic demonstrated with more urgency than ever before that internet health and human health exist in lockstep with each other,” said Alotta.

“And when those with the power to shape the internet choose to ignore its health, it costs us all dearly.”

He said those with the power to make change had responsibilities – to recognise the systemic racism of software and the internet; to stop seeing people’s personal lives as a reasonable source for profit without accountability; and to accept that decades of hard won labour rights do not apply when work is accessed through a platform. Meeting these would ensure the next generation of users would have privacy and safety online, workplace safety would be adapted to fit the modern era, and we could build a healthy internet for all.

Alotta added: “What gives me so much hope in this painfully challenging moment is that solutions exist, large and small. In this year’s report we asked over 100 experts and activists to share their solutions for a healthy internet. They are our North Star: the people who are on the ground, fighting for an open, safe, transparent, internet.

“And it is my hope that those with the power to [re]build the internet start following their lead.”