My 2016 Internet Wishlist for Santa Claus

Being close to Christmas and the end of 2016, I’ve come up with an Internet wish list for Santa Claus.

Since I don’t even believe in Santa, this gives you an idea of how desperate I’ve become for a sign that world is going to get better instead of worse.

Considering all the celebrity deaths, the US election, Brexit, Syria, ISIS, and peak climate change, it’s safe to say that 2016 was indeed a sucky year. But I’m trying to remain hopeful about what happens on the Internet

So I went to see Santa Claus and I read him my Internet wishlist.

1. Stop Trump

Santa, I hardly need to elaborate why this fried apricot should NOT take the highest office in the most powerful country in the world. But apart from his racism, mysogeny, xenophobia, nationalism, fascism, treason, corruption, nepotism, narcissism and stupidity, there are his Internet issues.

Trump has said he wants to build a Muslim Registryshut down the Internet at will, and he encouraged Russia to hack into Democratic Headquarters 

A Trump presidency could mean an end to Net Neutrality, a relatively new regulation that prevents the establishment paid tiers of service online. 

Not only that, Trump has hinted at defunding NASA’s climate change research which could prompt the destruction of data that world may need to survive in the future. 

That data may be moved to Canada along with the Internet Archive.

So please Santa, if you can’t stop Trump from taking office, please inspire his impeachment, or try tripping the guy the next time he rides his escalator.

And if it’s not too much to ask, Santa, please inspire Twitter to block Trump’s account to stop him from spreading ignorant and vile rhetoric there. Too many people with guns for brains are following him. Besides, we can’t have an “axe” twit bringing down a company’s stock price in a single tweet, the way he did recently with Lockheed Martin.

 ‘Cause Santa, you know the stock market doesn’t need any help crashing.

2. Stop Hackers

Hackers are the scourge of the internet, Santa. Not only do they keep us awake at night fearing a breach, they cost the world a ton of money for security solutions. While web security is one person’s cost hinderance but another person’s job creation, I often wonder if hackers don’t work for security firms to create more business.

People who hack are always banging down your door, barging in and stealing stuff, leaving their malicious offspring to do their evil bidding, making users pay bigtime to fend them off, and getting screwed when they can’t. Please Santa make them stop!

In addition to Russian, Turkish, Chinese, and American hackers, we also have to worry about being hacked by the FBI, new legislation of which allows the agency to hack your Internet accounts or computers without warrants. Anything you can do to stop that would be awesome.

READ MORE: The Best Tips to Securing WordPress Websites and Keeping Hackers Out

3. Stop Hacker Schools

And please stop “ethical hacking” education. Calling it “ethical hacking” is as much an obfuscation as “clean coal.” Hacking is something that should NOT be taught in courses, online or off, because what is to stop all these newly trained “ethical” hackers from going to the dark side, evildoing more than doing good?

And please stop the sales of tools for hackers, unless their sites get hacked with the very tools they sell.

4. Stop Fake News

Santa, the amount of crap content on the Internet has reached epidemic proportions. Users are so inundated with bait-click headlines algorithmed toward their personal worldview that they have lost sight of what’s truth, what’s truthy and what’s blatantly false.

Worse, some people don’t care that their being lied to, as long as the news comports to their opinion.

So please stop fake news from being found on the Internet, or failing that, get the hackers to hack into those sites.

While you’re at it, Santa, please stop content curators, scrapers, and crap bloggers from getting traffic. Original content creators gotta make a living, dammit!

Internet wishlist or magical incantation

At that point I sputtered out and told Santa that’s all I had, but it was probably enough for him. It would all be a challenge.

Santa let out a gentle chuckle, but didn’t exactly call me a ho. He just shook his hairy head and smiled.

“That’s a helluva lot for me to deliver, Mari,” he said. “But you’ve got understand, I’m just Santa Claus, not a magician.”

Well, right now, we could use some Christmas magic.

No matter what happens, I hope all my readers and clients have a fabulous holiday season!

See you in the New Year!

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