Readers reply: should we turn the internet off?

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions ponders the online world – from what’s despicable to what’s indispensable

• This week’s question: can you really fake it to make it?

The internet has turned fringe belief into mainstream politics and policy – from authoritarianism to vaccines. With democracy itself threatened, is it time to go back to a previous world of landlines, letters and face to-face-contact, audiotapes and Ansaphones? What would we miss about the online world that is worth the risk to liberal culture and basic freedoms? Should we turn the internet off? Mees Visser, Groningen, the Netherlands

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