Policy

May 1, 2025 | By Fiona Bultonsheen MPP ‘26

Joseph Wright of Derby, A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery, 1766

How do we make the world a safer place? Whole companies, units, and sectors of the government are dedicated to this pursuit. It seems that no matter how many guidelines, regulations, and executive orders are put into place, there are still bad actors who will wiggle their way around to poison the online world with their malicious content. Slash one hydra-like head and three more grow in its place. This is the heavy-laden state of modern tech policy. I’d like to suggest that one can have hope amidst this complex and often depressing digital environment.

Even the most well-intentioned public policy can be undermined by uncaring actors whose bulldozing of carefully crafted guidelines and rules is inevitable. Public servants must also cater to the interests of the tech companies themselves, who are seeking to innovate and get ahead of the curve (and capitalize on the gains thereof). When put into the wrong hands, the technological capabilities these brilliant engineers create can produce widespread disinformation campaigns, panic-inducing deepfakes, and, horrifyingly, the dissemination of child pornography on social media. A colossal task presents itself. To address this horrid onslaught of abuses, entire companies and units have been created. Google Jigsaw, a sector of Google dedicated to exploring “threats to open societies,” attempts to solve its way through the net of possible deleterious uses of artificial intelligence.

One must come to wonder, though: Are guardrails only effective insomuch as they can constrain the cyberterrorist, con artist, and pedophile? Is the compliance of the majority enough to measure a law’s potency? One strategy tech companies utilize to tame the beast of abhorrent content online is social media moderation. Moderators filter through the benign and the grotesque, surveying the vast content flooding their site. (In the case of YouTube, moderators audit a minuscule percentage of the total input of the 500 hours of video uploaded onto the platform each minute.) These employees flag and remove inappropriate images, videos, and text containing gore, violence, sexually exploitative material, bomb threats, etc., doing the hard work of protecting the public. However, constant exposure to the unfathomable and morally reprehensible takes a steep toll. It is no wonder that these people often slip into deep bouts of depression, developing mental illnesses after prolonged hours combing through the worst content possible online. The result in some cases is that marriages are torn apart – partners say their spouses are not the same after irreparable psychological damage. In the worst cases, years have been shaved off the lives of these moderators who decide to take their own lives.

We, as humans, were not meant to be consuming such putrid material day after day. The Christian would say that we were not designed for this. But, while it is easy to demonize the creators of this vile content, thinking of them as villains of the basest kind, we must come to realize that after giving oneself over to temptations and searing one’s conscience over time, any one of us is capable of such evil (James 1:15). None of us is immune to this.

Those in charge of advising and setting government direction in this digital landscape benefit from knowing their labor is not for nothing, even when they appear futile.

2 Corinthians 4:17-18 states that the “things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” Without this perspective, one could easily plunge into despair. The results of arduous regulating, moderating, and advocating in the political arena may amount to only meager returns. The sheer scale and velocity of activity in the digital sphere make it such that if a semblance of progress is gained, that glimmer of hope, too, can be quickly squashed. By publicizing the victory of thwarting an attempted cyberterrorism attack, one may inadvertently inspire malevolent hackers to learn from the mistakes of their failed predecessors and succeed in their fiendish schemes next time. Any peace of mind that comes from making this world a safer place is as unstable and impermanent as shifting sand. We yearn for a resolution we cannot, on our own, provide.

The Christian redemption story presents the only fully satisfying answer to this longing for total restoration through an eschatological blueprint that proclaims a new world to come. This long-awaited completion puts an end to fallenness and frustration abounding today. Those equipped with this temporal viewpoint of this natural life can remain sober-minded and yet, at the same time, hopeful.

The field of tech policy continues to grow in prominence and weightiness. Uncovering the dark web is not for the faint-hearted. Taking action in defense of the vulnerable (the elderly, the young, and the lonely) from manipulation and psychological harm feels impossible, like paddling up Niagara Falls. The deluge of negativity can easily turn one into an alarmist, desperately seeking out ultimately disappointing and partial solutions. That is why integrating the gospel narrative into this picture is so critical as an image bearer. The Truth of Jesus Christ transforms me such that I can be an agent of change, a conduit of light (Matthew 5:14). The default setting of society is that of brokenness; I am not its savior, and the burden of righting wrongs is not on my shoulders, but I can bear witness to a resounding hope that anchors me and says that my labor is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Christians believe that the ultimate reality that supersedes this physical one is that, however hopeless it may seem, there is hope in Christ: His death on the cross paid the price for our sins, and His resurrection spells utter and complete victory over the wiles of the enemy. Present toils carry a meaning that points to a realm beyond this one – a realm where the longings of our hearts and works of our hands will meet their final and complete satisfaction in His kingdom of light. The King will return and right every wrong, and that is good news indeed.