Virtual Event, 4 March 2022
Horasis USA Meeting
Shaping America’s Role in the Post-COVID World
George I Fomitchev, CEO and founder of Endurance lasers will be chairing the panel discussion “Policing the Web”
18.30-19.15 US Eastern Time 4-th of March 20222
Policing the Web
All agree that the Web needs to be controlled to halt pornography, negate violence, and refute fake news: we don’t agree on the mechanism of policing. Is this a case of politicians failing to define what is needed, and accept their responsibility? Will deferring action to private firms induce slow and cautious change as firms guard themselves against legal challenges? How best initiate beneficial change?
• Preeyam Budhia, President, Business Development, Patton Group of Companies, India
• Maxim Jago, Futurist, Filmmaker, and Author, United Kingdom
• Petah Marian, Founder, Future Narrative, Australia
• John Montgomery, Founder, Lex Ultima, USA
• Mavis Yaa Bermudez, Chief Executive Officer, Cardinal Security Services, Ghana
Chaired by
• George I. Fomitchev, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Endurance, USA
We will talk about Policing the Web.
Right now I think it is a very important topic because every day we get fake requests, shady messages, unknown calls.
Even my 8 years old son knows from YouTube channel about the «darknet»:.
A few days ago I got a call from someone who called himself a Keanu Reeves and invited me to join his next movie as an actor.
People get abused on the web, people get insulted, people need protection and some legal rights on the web.
My thoughts on the themes for our panel are in two parts – concerns for the individual and for the organisations presenting the networks we engage with.
For individuals, I believe in self-censorship. For this to be effective, individuals must know how to assess the information they are presented with and to make wise choices about the kinds of information they will digest without verifying sources. It can be extremely difficult for a member of the public to obtain robust information about any particular issue that impacts the wider world. Consequently, there is a danger individuals will give up on having opinions in the name of pragmatism (or fatigue). To counteract this issue, it might be helpful if individuals were better able to make decisions about their lives and the actions they take without the influence of major news agencies, for example, or meme-based information sharing on social networks. How can this type of autonomy be achieved without investment in wisdom as a goal for modern education?
For large-scale organisations that present ‘news’, social media and social networks, there is a great burden of responsibility to verify and flag content accordingly: It is well documented that individuals often struggle to differentiate between something that is true and something that is compelling. Media agencies invest a great deal of energy in triggering outrage in their audience as it tends to illicit more attention and more energy – more reposting and sharing, and more awareness of the originating agency’s concerns. The need for attention (for profit) is in conflict with the need to inform the public. Members of the public tend to believe things that they read or that are presented on well-established platforms, or that they discover on multiple platforms (seeming to verify information while actually verifying nothing). Knowing this, there is a great burden of responsibility to ensure information presented is either validated or flagged as uncertain. This responsibility is not being honoured.
Free speech is incredibly important, but before the latest iteration of the internet, it was only accessible to people with a platform (newspapers etc) and it was their role to separate fact from opinion, the problem that we have today is that everyone has a platform, which means that fact and opinion become swirled in with each other. Also the tech companies have a role to play in ensuring algorithms serve up information that allows people to challenge their opinions – at the moment we are in a situation where we are increasingly shown information that aligns with our worldviews, which prevents growth – it’s more about exposing people to different information so that they don’t become so entrenched in their views.
About Horasis: Horasis – a global visions community committed to inspiring our future – provides a unique platform for companies from emerging and developed markets to globalize their organizations. In addition to the Horasis Extraordinary Meeting, Horasis hosts the annual Horasis Global Meeting, Horasis India Meeting, Horasis China Meeting, Horasis Asia Meeting, as well as the annual gatherings of the Horasis Visionary Circle.
Following the success of the 2021 Horasis Extraordinary Meeting on the USA, Horasis has decided to hold this meeting on an annual basis. On 4 March 2022, Horasis will convene a digitally-mediated meeting focused on the USA with the focus on the country’s future, and its influence on the rest of the globe. Given the imminence of the USA’s mid-term elections, we will ask how its governance base might shift, and thus relationships within the nation itself and abroad.
How will its foreign relations change towards Europe and across the Asia-Pacific region, especially with China? And while the USA previously has welcomed immigrants, like many developed nations, it is reconsidering its position. How will the USA reconcile its falling birth rate and lower expected lifespan with the clamour of immigrants who wish to come to the country? And with it, how will it keep on attracting forward-thinking and technically capable people?
Within the Horasis USA Meeting, we offer to advance a viable recovery for all nations – envisioning and implementing novel business models, new political cooperation, and deeper social cohesion. Delegates will discuss how to uplift business ideals, goals, and roles to reach a better future. How to embrace diversity and be gender inclusive across the world? Are crypto-currencies a way forward for nations with a weaker banking and finance segment?