Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg

 

April 3, 2026

Neil Thomson

825 Alview Crescent

Kamloops, BC

V2B 6C5

 

Meta Platforms, Inc. (Meta)

Mark Zuckerberg

1 Meta Way

1601 Willow Road,

Menlo Park,

CA 94025

 

Dear Sir,

 

RE: INTERNET REGULATION

I have been an avid user of Facebook and find the platform very enriching. Given that I’ve come to rely on it so much as a social vehicle. Given its value to me and society in general, I feel compelled to address some of the deficiencies or ills that social media generally causes.

The United States and Western Civilization generally are losing cohesion. Societal cohesion is faltering due to the amplification of the negativity bias that results from social media platforms. The amplified negativity bias is facilitated and or exacerbated by anonymity. Nearly every ill that has fallen out of the widespread use of social media can be attributed to anonymity and the resulting lack of accountability for what is said. When people can be identified, they can be held accountable. When people can be identified, they become more accountable. Anonymity throws the door open to subversive influence. Absent anonymity, Psychological Operations by entities are curtailed, misinformation and disinformation are curtailed, propagation of hate is curtailed; name an ill and it is curtailed.

When anonymity is absent, Facebook (Meta), can then clearly bill itself as a platform only, and it will be absolved of any wrongdoing due to the ability of authorities and negatively affected entities being able to go to the source. The onus with respect to any errant communication will fall to the publisher rather than the platform. Censorship will fall away from Facebook due to there being a clear avenue for aggrieved parties to seek recourse directly with the publisher.

The excerpt below offers a suggestion on how this challenge might be addressed. It was presented as a governmental policy solution; it could as easily have been an industry initiative.  

Excerpt from a Letter to the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture

The goal of internet safety should be to, firstly, protect people from harm, and secondly, and as importantly, avoid encroachment on free speech. Any adjudication in this regard must occur under the auspices of fundamental law and should never fall out of the full purview of an open court.

What is happening now is a frustrating calamity of futile attempts by large actors in the business to offer protection. It is clearly failing on all fronts. The censorship I’ve encountered on various platforms has been arbitrary, often executed anonymously or ambiguously and in error or in a manner that prevents the free flow of ideas. Most disturbing, a picture of Micky Mouse when clicked upon can lead a child to grotesquely violent and graphic sexual material – an event that once it occurs, adulterates that child for life. While adults have the right to view adult material, there is a clear imperative to protect the innocence of children.

Whereas the present regulation and operation of the internet is permitting the transmission of information that harms the nation's narrative, exposes children to damaging materials, facilitates the anonymous abuse of people, allows foreign actors to effect discord and whereas anonymity is the facilitating factor in isolating perpetrators of harm from coming under the weight of the law, measures must be taken to have people’s actions tied to their identity. To this end, the government should enact legislation that makes it a statutory requirement that every person using social media in Canada be provisioned with an Internet Identity Number and that every platform operating in Canada is required to provide for the use of an Internet Identity Number for an account to function.

In the way that effectively every Canadian has a Social Insurance Number, every Canadian should have an Internet Identity Number. This proposition would also have as a requirement that anyone using any platform in Canada on the internet would require a number as well – so this would include foreign actors. The process would be to apply via the Internet and provide proof of identity, and how a given actor could be located with contact information. This would be achieved in the same way one proves their identity through services like Stripe and other online payment and collection systems. The number and the identity data would be held in a Government of Canada database.

The only requirement of the service providers would be one more mandatory field on the account creation form. If a person has multiple Facebook accounts, for example, they would simply put that number on each account. This offers no operational impediment relative to what happens now. Further, and perhaps most importantly, there would be a date of birth attached to the number, so if Porn Hub allows a minor to access their materials, there is a readily clear means to prove wrongdoing.

If an account operator engages in slanderous behaviour or is peddling profane materials, for example, and a complaint or action is required, there is a trail to the culprit. To garner access to the identity of the account holder, one would make an application for an access order via a lower-level court and on the strength of that court order, the government would release the contact information so action can be taken.

It may be the case that as Canada’s database grows to include a large swath of the world’s population, and then other countries would join the effort. It may evolve in much the same way registering an internet site has. We can demand appropriate regulation in Canada - we may end up effecting appropriate regulation the world over.

Anonymity is a two-way street.

Sometime ago I reposted a clip of an Australian Senator speaking in the Senate criticizing COVID policy. The post was blocked, or removed in someway and my account functionality was affected. The attached note indicated someone in the Australian press corps was responsible. I had no means of recourse.

Conclusion

We must act now and decisively. The fact that Western civilization's narrative is so badly fragmented, the fact that the public’s map of reality is so badly distorted, and the fact that we are experiencing an unprecedented level of discord can be attributed to the realities of modern communication modalities. These negative externalities are nearly all the result of people being able to remain anonymous. People are being permitted to lie, cheat, lure children, and sow discord with impunity. I respectfully urge Meta to consider supporting or piloting identity-linked accountability measures that preserve free expression while reducing harms enabled by anonymity. I believe this could strengthen societal trust in platforms like Facebook and help restore societal cohesion.

I would welcome any opportunity to discuss this further. Thank you for your time and leadership on these important issues.

Kind Regards,

  

Neil E. Thomson

Mark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark 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Want Diversity, Prosperity - FOSTER INDIVIDUALISM

Individualism is a modern phenomenon, the concept can only find expression in a circumstance where society is big enough, easy enough and people are isolated enough to be able to survive absent a tribe. Individualism is constantly corrupted by the collective and the massive mass media narrative that is at play now in the world. Individualism is in large measure a spawn of the United States, an order, which aspires to deliver personal choice – the first of its kind in history. I love individualism as it merges with democracy and common law, because, at once, people act with autonomy and it is required that they respond to the interests of others; this is a beautiful thing.

It seems that when you get more than a couple of people acting together, autonomy gets challenged, especially in modern society, where groups tend to coalesce around a “special interest”. “Special Interests” are okay, what is unacceptable, however, is the way in which the actions of people associated with a special interest tend to become associated with “left” or “right” or one political brand or another. At the very moment, an issue becomes attached to a political brand, it gets distorted because politics are about power first and policy second. Given that in a democracy to forward an idea, one needs political mass (power), acquiring political mass requires accommodating large numbers of people and in the accommodation of large numbers of people, distortions occur. It is optimum to seek solutions to issues rather than distort issues to suit power, which rarely happens. By nurturing the Individual, by creating self-supporting, self-sufficient, independent people we begin to fracture “the group” and/or “group think”. This is a healthy thing, as it permits people to bring a critical mind to challenges.

Individualism in the modern context of social media, has “individualism” in effect being a branding exercise, one hopes that the broad-based ability to “mediafy” one’s self begins to fracture the narrative – under the “post WW2” mass media regime we were slotted into a bi-polar, tri-polar – or a limited polled political space and then slotted into one of about 6 or 7 stereotypes. The old media space held control over the populace’s thought under a narrow spectrum of competition; the modern individual is able to draw on, and build the “individual” from a broader spectrum in the social media space; allowing for a nuanced projection of self and a general societal circumstance of a more nuanced perception of others. Further, the coalescence of micro-topics or interests “on the tail” brings oddities into the mainstream as they gain resolution in a manner that would have never occurred in the past, generating a circumstance where “individuals’” emerge in a more varied and nuanced way. This is a beautiful thing as well, it is being challenged by the increasing regulation of the internet space – governments are seeking to once again restrict and control the data that feeds the narrative – as, where the narrative goes society goes. This is the paradox, the broader and more varied the data field, the broader and more varied the individual becomes; this well-spring nearly always brings disruption, and disruption scares the established and the established seek to suppress disruption - yet we need disruption to advance.

We must seek to enhance the individual, to foster diversity; individuals are rarely birthed in large monolithic institutions, in fact, large monolithic institutions are hostile to the individual. Institutions “haze” individuals out of existence or the bell curve does and forces them to fit the mould, rather than liberate them from the mould. Every individual is a point of emergence, we can smother that emergence with dogma, and conformity, thereby, retaining “norms” & “stability” OR we can seek at every opportunity to feed the creation of individuals that emerge un-subdued by the “old” and embrace the disruption that they bring us.   

Please click here for my professional website

Internet Freedom - Say NO to Censorship

There is a beauty in the fact, that every person now can effect their ripple of influence in the ocean of human activity, the digital revolution is affecting the democratization of the people in an unprecedented way, as there is less opportunity now to withhold, shape or obstruct information flow to the masses by the established. We have moved from Walter Cronkite to the flash mob, from bastions of credibility to authority in question, from Lord Beaverbrook to the personal website - this transformation in media, in the same way, that life imitates art and life gives birth to art - is disrupting the entire social construct. No other event in history has fragmented the meta-narrative so rapidly - it has replaced the idol rockstar with the rebirthed travelling mistral, it has given rise to the digital artisan, it has given wings to the traditional artisans, it has given the individual access to the masses. 

This powerful dynamic, the dynamic that has made every person a National Network, is threatened, however. There is a trend emerging that has greater control being placed on the internet by governments and by consolidation in influence by key corporate players. Google, by way of example, has been as a whole a liberating force in the internet space, its company creed it to distribute and share information. Google has interests that find expression by its functionality, these interests will be served because Google has critical mass in the space. I am an enthusiastic user of Google’s services on the internet, I appreciate what the company offers and understand that in exchange for their services I share my search data and get exposed to relevant materials, and for the most part this is a good thing.

This information is directed to me by artificial intelligence, so no human perusal of my habits is made, no judgement past – just like data begets like data – or one anonymous entity directing data to another anonymous entity. The Challenge comes when I, my person, am attached to data and a profile emerges with a name attached to it – from there, there is no longer metadata, this is me and my personal data, private information. Governments increasingly want to access this data and or control this data. The consolidation of influence and the interests innate in internet service providers in facilitating the confluence of data related to my person with government scrutiny and scrutiny by other third parties. That is to say, the natural process in any human interface (market) to have influence consolidate is conspiring to concentrate data related to the individual. 

 

When I was first exposed to the internet, I used Net Scape as my interface with the World Wide Web. When I typed in a search, I would get to pertinent data instantly, really substantive data on a given subject. I am finding now that I am getting a lot of “non-information” and or misinformation, or that commercial data is obviating my ability to get at “source data” or perhaps critical data. I am an ardent promoter of free-market actions, and I want the internet to be a place that facilitates enterprise, there is a paradox evolving, however, that have dominant players in effect choking out access to all data with what seems to be an exponential force. The internet is still greatly superior to the old media environment and is facilitating entrepreneurship – I am referring to this in the context of an emerging trend. My mention of Google here as a point of consolidation is in the context of the evolution of influence, we can be grateful that Google has taken many steps to ensure individual net liberty, Open Source operating systems and the like – the challenge is the consolidation of influence and the resulting capacity for governments to access and or take control of personal data.  

The internet is a reflection of humanity at large; if what you find there is offensive, it is us you’re looking at. The full spectrum of humanity is represented there, and tolerance is required. The prospect of the government choosing what is moral or immoral on my behalf is a grossly offensive prospect. At what point does government stop this sort of intervention into the private lives of the populace; it may be “pornography” today and depictions of gluttony tomorrow, a sin, after all, is a sin, noone is enthusiastic about a child eating themselves to obesity. These sorts of technical interventions have proven dangerous, China’s persecution of Fallen Gong for example. Once an institution starts down the path of dropping a blanket of judgment over the populace at large, the society becomes a dull and indistinguishable place of being. Cultural or life modality variance, is healthy; government is very ineffective at managing the personal lives of people; information is what defines people.

We do have the obligation to keep the PUBLIC SQUARE as influence natural as possible, I should be able to walk down the street with my child and have them arrive at the other end unaffected morally; they should remain in the state of morality I, as a parent, have provided.  The family is the only appropriate mechanism for the delivery of moral concern or organizations that parents voluntarily choose to expose their children to.  

The presence of adult content available for access at one’s own discretion is only accessed as an act of free will, parents have the option to exercise that free will in the interests of their children. For the government to intervene in that process in a manner that forces one to identify themself, puts information in the hands of a government that could in some way subject these individuals to discrimination or be accessed illegitimately as a filter for other societal endeavours. By way of example, Safeway in the US once sold pharmaceutical data to insurance companies absent the knowledge of the person’s concerned; there are thousands of examples of data abuse, not the least of which was the recent breach of Revenue Canada’s data.

There are elements of widely held taboo, child pornography is illegal and is wholly offensive. The subjection of a child to sexual abuse has clear harm, physically and mentally, and the full weight of government, of all of us, must come to bear on protecting children. Prior to the internet this element of society was embedded and dispersed. As a result of the Internet, the perpetrators of this type of conduct congregated and gave authorities a means by which to detect and locate them. Had the system blocked the traffic related to this subject matter, this despicable element of society would have remained undetectable. As a Toronto policeman said, “I can’t walk down the street and ask someone if they are a pedophile, but I can on the internet.” The Toronto Police were able to identify groups of pedophiles the world over and were able to safeguard  children as a result. As grossly offensive as this subject matter is, it offered a resolution to the challenge for police and provided an observable target. Clearly, child pornography is a scourge, to know its point of origin we need to know its there.

Adult content is at the discretion of adults to access. As adults, we need to protect our childrens' innocence so they can grow into adults with the full spectrum of choices in life modalities. When the government puts a blanket filler on adult content and forces one to identify themselves to access it, is a breach of their personal liberty for reasons stated above and no different than forcing me to give my name to access the United Church website. The only practical means to filter content is at the point of consumption. The government should be working on provisioning tools for parents to filter content on personal devices, and the government should invest in the enabling parents to control minors' access to content.  

Recently, the UK government is wanting to take steps to restrict control of adult content by forcing people to identify themselves in order to access sites the government has “blocked” general access to. The government offers as justification for this the protection of children from premature exposure to adult content. Of course, we all share their concern; exposure to many types of Adult content can “corrupt” a young mind. When I say “corrupt”, I mean providing access to unhealthy sexuality, as opposed to sexuality that is an extension of human love. I offer this to clarify, to make distinct from religious concern, that mine is other than a puritanical concern, but rather a protective concern to ensure an appropriate introduction to a healthy view of human sexuality.  While I share the need to direct children’s access to the web, and by extension adult content – I vehemently oppose the methods proposed by the government and the forced association of individuals with data that is judged harshly from a puritanical perspective.  It is safer and healthier to have the point of control for this data in the hands of parents at the device level – to control access to adult content by government perusal brings government into a place that is highly intimate and by extension provisions functionality that allows the government to peruse other data as well.     

The world of entertainment is full of the depiction of evil, by seeing evil we become acquainted with it – we come to understand it. Only by exposure to it can we gain the insight we need to wage war against it. There are just too many instances where the government has been the evil, or religious institutions have burnt people at the stake for “adult content”. There is no clear distinction between censorship and good old-fashioned book burning; curtailing information in any way curtails progress. Evil has always been with us, it raises its head as often at the hands of the ostensibly righteous as it does the clearly sinister; the only thing that has ever stopped evil is the good judgment of an enlightened individual.  

The exploitation of women is a concern, to attach exploitation of women to adult content, in general, is an errant path of thought, it carries inherent in it 2000 years of distortion around the perception of female sexuality and the dumping of a distorted perception of virtue in women’s laps. We are all eager to protect women in vulnerable circumstances from exploitation.  It is my sense that the physiological coupling of violence and sexuality is a dangerous path. I believe violent depictions of adult activity are most often associated with female exploitation, if women are being forced into these circumstances it requires functionality on the ground to address it, internet censorship has no means to determine the presence or absence of coercion. To presume a woman is being exploited because she is shown in adult entertainment is a product of a prevalent bias, a bias I believe feminists are fighting to eradicate.

My personal use of the internet and the content and information I garner as a resource there, no one could have imagined just a few years ago. The openness of the information highway has facilitated the distribution of information to so many and has democratized almost every element of modern life. There is both promise and peril in openness, openness regardless of the risks is the only path to enlightenment and may the enlightenment continue.   

Law, Legislation and Liberty - Say no to Internet Censorship

This was written in response to policy suggestions related to adult content on the internet.

The internet is a reflection of humanity at large; if what you find there is offensive, it is us you’re looking at. The full spectrum of humanity is represented there, tolerance is required. The prospect of the government choosing what is moral or immoral on my behalf is a grossly offensive prospect. At what point does government stop this sort of intervention into the private lives of the populace; it may be “pornography” today and depictions of gluttony tomorrow, a sin after all, is a sin, no one is enthusiastic about a child eating themselves to obesity. These sorts of technical interventions have proven dangerous, China’s persecution of Fallen Gong for example. Once an institution starts down the path of dropping a blanket of judgment over the populace at large, the society becomes a dull and indistinguishable place of being. Cultural or life modality variance, is healthy; government is very ineffective at managing the personal lives of people; information is what defines people.

We do have the obligation to keep the PUBLIC SQUARE as influence natural as possible, I should be able to walk down the street with my child and have them arrive at the other end unaffected morally; they should remain in the state of morality I as a parent have provided.  The family is the only appropriate mechanism for the delivery of moral concern or organizations that parents voluntarily choose to expose their children to.  

The presence of adult content available for access by one’s own discretion is only accessed as an act of freewill, parents have the option to exercise that freewill in the interestes of their children. For the government to intervene in that process in a manner that forces one to identify themself, puts information in the hands of government that could in some way subject these individuals to discrimination or be accessed illegitimately as a filter for other societal endeavors. By way of example, Safeway in the US once sold pharmaceutical data to insurance companies absent that knowledge of the person’s concerned; there are thousands of examples of data abuse, not the least of which was the recent breach of Revenue Canada’s data.

There are elements of widely held taboo, child pornography is illegal and is wholly offensive. Subjection of a child to sexual abuse has a clear harm, physically and mentally, and the full weight of government, of all of us, must come to bear on protecting children. Prior to the internet this element of society was embedded and dispersed. As a result of the Internet, the perpetrators of this type of conduct congregated and gave authorities a means by which to detect and locate them. Had the system blocked the traffic related to this subject matter, this despicable element of society would have remained undetectable. As a Toronto policemen said “I can’t walk down the street and ask if someone if they are a pedophile, but I can on the internet.” The Toronto Police were able to identify groups of pedophiles the world over and where able to safe and guard  children as a result. As grossly offensive as this subject matter is, it offered resolution to the challenge for police and provided an observable target. Clearly, child pornography is a scourge, to know its point of origin we need to know its there.

Adult content is at the discretion of adults to access. As adults we need to protect our children’s innocence so they can grow to adults with the full spectrum of choice in life modality. When government puts a blanket filler on adult content and forces one to identify themself to access it, is a breach of their personal liberty for reasons stated above and no different than forcing me to give my name to access the United Church website. The only practical means to filter content is at the point of consumption. The government should be working at provisioning tools for parents to filter content on personal devices, the government should invest in the enabling of parents to control minors access to content.  

The world of entertainment is full of depiction of evil, by seeing evil we become acquainted with it – we come to understand it. Only by exposure to it can we gain the insight we need to wage war against it. There are just too many instances where government has been the evil, or religious institutions have burnt people at the stake for “adult content”. There is no clear distinction between censorship and good old fashioned book burning, curtailing information in anyway curtails progress. Evil has always been with us, it raises its head as often at the hands of the ostensibly righteous as it does the sinister; the only thing that has ever stopped evil is the good judgment of a an enlightened individual.  

The exploitation of women is a concern, to attach exploitation of women to adult content in general is an errant path of thought, it carries inherent in it 2000 years of distortion around the perception of female sexuality and the dumping of a distorted perception of virtue in women’s laps. We are all eager to protect women in vulnerable circumstance from exploitation.  It is my sense that the physiological coupling of violence and sexuality is a dangerous path. I believe violent depictions of adult activity is most often associated with female exploitation, if women are being forced into these circumstances it requires functionality on the ground to address it, internet censorship has no means to determine the presence or absence of coercion. To presume a woman is being exploited because she is shown in adult entertainment is a product of a prevalent bias, a bias I believe feminists are fighting to eradicate.

My personal use of the internet and the content and information I garner as a resource there, no one could have imagined just a few years ago. The openness of the information highway has facilitated the distribution of information to so many and has democratized almost every element of modern life. There is both promise and peril in openness, openness regardless of the risks is the only path to enlightenment and may the enlightenment continue.