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Comment by dataangel | Hacker News Reader

I think the nostalgia is really rooted in the fact that there was a stronger filter for who was on the Internet back then. You had to be willing to put in more time, you had to understand more things, it was harder to use. You were much more likely to be a tech enthusiast or an academic if you were on the Internet even up until ~2008. I feel like smartphones are the real September that never ended, and social media just lowered the barrier further. People were blogging before that but even setting up a blog was harder than writing a Facebook post or a tweet.

There are upsides to the new world though. That filter wasn't exclusively good. Computers were a lot more expensive. Poorer communities lacked access. People without tech savvy are often still pretty smart and have good points to make.

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I don't fully agree. One thing is having a built-in filter, but the other thing is encouraging harmful behavior. Not only has the filter now been removed, but the new entrants have been encouraged (through algorithms which promote divisive content) to produce and consume harmful content because it increases "engagement".

There was a period of time where social media was just starting out where the filter has essentially been removed (anyone can easily join and start producing & consuming content) but harmful content wasn't yet encouraged. Social media was about keeping up with your friends' content, and while I'm sure harmful & divisive content was present, you had to explicitly seek it out (by liking/following the right accounts).

Nowadays all social media uses algorithms that promote content that will yield the maximum amount of "engagement" on your part so you increase the time spend on the platform and the amount of ads watched.

The definition of harmful content is a big sticking point with me.

Engaging in civil discourse on a hot topic typically ends with one side being accused of something heinous. That’s not harmful. That’s blatant censorship.

Indeed there's no clear answer as to what content is "harmful", which is why I'm not advocating for censorship but merely to let the user be in control of what they see.

Currently, the algorithm will prioritize content that produces the most "engagement", including even content that you otherwise have no link with and don't follow the user who posted it. Divisive, outrageous, hateful or blatantly fake content will typically generate tremendous amounts of engagement (as people start arguing over it) as opposed to mundane content such as updates from your friends.

There's also no way to have "civil discourse" when the algorithm prioritizes the hottest takes as opposed to more reasonable arguments.

There's another factor that I haven't see mentioned: I have no interest in most sections of the news. And even if I select only some kind of news, say "computers" I'm not very interested in consumer's hardware or commercial programs including apps or games, just programming, security and little more.

But social media live on ads. They tend to promote contents that cater to wide audiences.

If I'm only interested in a few niches, social media are a big waste of time. The contents and the discussions around them.

aren't the algorithms only amplifying the average tendencies ?

Potentially, but that's still not an argument in its favour. Why should there be an "algorithm" to begin with? Unless you have thousands of "friends", you do not need an algorithm to keep up with them, a chronological timeline works just fine.

If anything, maybe the algorithm should do the opposite and discourage arguments?

Maybe over time this moves the average in a worse direction.

> There was a period of time where social media was just starting out where the filter has essentially been removed (anyone can easily join and start producing & consuming content) but harmful content wasn't yet encouraged.

Prior to social media there was usenet, specialized forums, imageboards such as 4chan, and mass use of IRC. The average social media user would recoil in horror at the 'divisive' content that was common to that time period. REAL neonazis spread their message with impunity, anarchists gathered and distributed tutorials on how to make homemade weaponry, illegal pornography was rampant, and mass shooters were glorified. The 'divisive' content of today is quite tame and is focused primarily on promoting the interests of one of a handful of relatively similar political parties over the others. My point being that social media has amplified the voices of billions, but the money machine behind it has toned the violent poltical rhetoric of the net down to a dull roar. Anyone claiming otherwise is either misinformed or has something they want to sell you. </rant>

Many of those extra-divisive platforms are still around in one form or another, and are likely bigger than they were in the past (thanks again to reduced barriers to entry). But a normal person can avoid engaging in those platforms entirely by just… not going on them.

Imo the danger of modern social media’s algorithmic feeds is that it draws in otherwise perfectly normal people, who would never voluntarily seek out the divisive content that gets promoted on their feeds. So now we have the worst of both worlds: platforms with violent political rhetoric are still highly available to those who would seek them out, and more average folks are drawn to seek them out by the “dull roar” that draws them in on the major social platforms.

> platforms with violent political rhetoric are still highly available to those who would seek them out

I would submit that they are no longer highly available or their core userbase has moved on to the "dark web". The genius of the centralized social media platform is that it lives on advertising dollars. The advertisers will pull back whenever a platform becomes too uncontrolled. This was the case when Pewdiepie's accidental Nazi reference video was released. A massive pullback in advertising dollars 'forced' YouTube to reconsider its previously lax content policies and policing. That's not to say that YouTube is some pleasant walled garden, but rather that those creating videos and making real money from the site are incentivized to police their own behavior and rhetoric. Most people talking about 'divisive' content are talking around the Trump/QAnon fiasco. Which is very different from the internet I grew up on where even on a 'kids site' you would often see users calling for outright genocide of specific racial groups.

> becomes too uncontrolled

Given the amount of content out there, there's potential to be stuck in a local maximum where there's enough harmful content to cause negative externalities, but not enough to be seen as the majority of the content. This is reinforced by algorithmic feeds and targeted advertising where there's just no way for someone (whether the advertisers themselves or an independent watchdog) to tell what's actually going on, since their feed will be significantly different from someone stuck in an echo chamber full of harmful content.

> Most people talking about 'divisive' content are talking around the Trump/QAnon fiasco

Not even Trump per-se. The problem goes far beyond Trump and his political party when he - the supposed "leader" - gets booed by his own crowd. QAnon is just one example of terribly harmful content out there, but there's plenty more, from the Covid vaccine conspiracies, alternative "medicine", or just plain racism/nationalism and neo-Nazism.

> where even on a 'kids site' you would often see users calling for outright genocide of specific racial groups.

The forum software wasn't promoting said content though, so they were likely to remain a minority, which is both easier to control and explain away ("there are bad people on the Internet, learn to ignore it"). Facebook on the other hand will happily keep feeding you more and more of said content if it sees that you engage with it.

> Prior to social media there was usenet, specialized forums, imageboards such as 4chan, and mass use of IRC

The content was segregated and you explicitly had to seek it out. Not to mention, there was no algorithm to ease you into it, so even someone whose political views would lean towards a particular affiliation might recoil in horror at the craziness they'd see on one of those "specialized forums", where as Facebook will happily ease you in bit by bit until the craziness appears normal, even if you originally had no intention of reading about/discussing politics and just wanted to keep up with your friends' holiday pictures.

> is focused primarily on promoting the interests of one of a handful of relatively similar political parties over the others

I disagree. I believe the vast majority of divisive content nowadays is created & promoted by random people who don't benefit financially from it; in fact there's no single source (political party, etc) that would pay to originate this stuff, instead Facebook and other social media just use any divisive content to increase ad impressions, regardless of the political affiliation of said content. I'm sure political parties sometimes benefit from these "useful idiots" but even they don't actually fully control the narrative.

> in fact there's no single source (political party, etc) that would pay to originate this stuff

There are private firms working in cahoots with state actors to influence opinion and shape narrative all across the internet and especially on social media.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook–Cambridge_Analytica...

> I believe the vast majority of divisive content nowadays is created & promoted by random people who don't benefit financially from it;

You're both wrong, and you're both right. Facebook isn't focused on promoting the interests of any particular political party. But there are political forces abusing Facebook's algorithms to promote their message. Most recent example: https://apnews.com/article/china-tiktok-facebook-influencers...

4chan and most of what you described are much more recent than the period of Internet Jack is being nostalgic for. Obviously there were ton of assholes, trolls and bad people on Usenet and IRC before year 2000 and around that time, but everybody was more active so the "good ones" usually won and kept the community working. But it was an easier task because of raw numbers.

Today...well, for more than a decade now, to do moderation at scale and emerge content you have to automate it, and Internet is now a giant business, so the incentives are totally different and so are the outcomes. There can be still a few happy islands where life is good as it was, and by number of users they are probably even bigger than ~2000 Internet, but they are now minority.

> Prior to social media there was usenet, specialized forums, imageboards such as 4chan, and mass use of IRC. The average social media user would recoil in horror at the 'divisive' content that was common to that time period.

This was stuff you had to look for. I certainly looked for it and found it, but it was also trivially avoidable.

> REAL neonazis spread their message with impunity

Still plenty of "real" neonazis on the internet, and a lot more friendly venues for them if they stick to those ideas of theirs that have become more popular since they were once ghettoized on Stormfront, and keep the master race talk to coded memes and oblique references.

> Not only has the filter now been removed, but the new entrants have been encouraged (through algorithms which promote divisive content) to produce and consume harmful content because it increases "engagement".

I agreed with this until I started seeing more information about how much divisive content there is on whatsapp, which isn’t algorithmic or driven by anything other than people, similar to old email forward chains.

We don’t like the algorithmic feeds and everything else because they’re a big mirror that just reflects back how humans act, and we don’t like what we see. The algorithms themselves aren’t the problem IMO.

But Whatsapp doesn't promote any content. It's all private conversations, isn't it?

I would say that Whatsapp is a big mirror, not of how humans act, but of how humans behave in other social media.

That’s my point - whatsapp doesn’t promote content, but it is still one of the largest distributors of disinformation content. This is a clear supporting argument that people share that without algorithmic any help.

I think this narrative has been blown out of proportion.

The “algorithm” has become an easy stand-in to blame nebulous programmers for people choosing to view content they want to see.

The “algorithm” isn’t literally a model trained to recognize divisive content and promote it to as many people as possible. It doesn’t have motives or intentions. It’s literally just a recommendation engine that suggests similar content to people.

Platforms without algorithms are still full of divisive content which spreads virally. Some of the worst content on the internet won’t be found on Facebook or other moderated platforms at all. You have to work to get to it, and people do the work to get there. No algorithms to blame, just people.

We really need to stop giving people a pass and stop piling our complaints on to the “algorithm”. People who make bad choices and consume bad content are doing so on their own volition, and we need to treat it as such if you want to make progress on the solution. Railing against faceless personifications of algorithms isn’t going to get us anywhere on solving these social problems.

> The “algorithm” isn’t literally a model trained to recognize divisive content and promote it to as many people as possible. It doesn’t have motives or intentions. It’s literally just a recommendation engine that suggests similar content to people.

Mostly agreed, though I don't believe "similarity" is the only factor - "engagement" is also a factor, likely a big one considering the business model of the company.

Yes, the algorithm doesn't have intentions or political bias (yet?), however it doesn't take a genius to infer that divisive content will generate more engagement than other, mundane content, and even more so when the algorithm has been deployed to production and there's real-world data to prove this.

> Platforms without algorithms are still full of divisive content which spreads virally.

Without algorithms the only way this content would spread is for people to explicitly re-share it to their friends - it will not pop up "organically" otherwise. You will need to explicitly attach your name to it if you were to share it, and be ready to defend it and bear the risk of being ostracized from your group. This also means that as long as you choose your Facebook "friends" carefully, you can curate your feed and keep craziness or other irrelevant content at bay.

> Some of the worst content on the internet won’t be found on Facebook or other moderated platforms at all. You have to work to get to it, and people do the work to get there. No algorithms to blame, just people.

And thankfully that worst content has (yet?) to make it to my non-technical friends' Facebook feeds, so it seems like the system is working as designed? Twisted people will keep finding & producing said content, but it's contained and will not make its way onto mainstream platforms without explicit efforts from those people and everyone else on the network to re-share it multiple times.

> People who make bad choices and consume bad content are doing so on their own volition

Disagreed. People went onto Facebook (or other social media) to keep in touch with their friends & family, but over time, the algorithm was locking them into an echo chamber full of whatever divisive, harmful, false or outright crazy content it could find as long as it was driving "engagement" numbers up.

If you could travel back in time and ask some of the people that stormed the Capitol or are forever lost in the QAnon conspiracy whether they thought they would do so when they initially joined Facebook, I bet they would call you crazy. In fact, I bet a large chunk of those people are old enough to know the "old" Internet and yet didn't turn to extremism until the craziness was delivered to them in a nice, harmless-looking format.

This isn't true, underground hate groups were very early to the web.

A buddy of mine worked for a big tech company in the early 2000's when a fantastic resume came across his desk from an applicant for a developer job (this would've been around 2003-2004). My friend googled him and very quickly found that this guy ran a white supremacy forum (the candidate made no effort to conceal his true identity on the forum and his profile included a photo). Talk about a different time.

My friend didn't really know what to do because he feared a discrimination lawsuit if he outright rejected the candidate so he reached out to some folks for advice. They eventually found another good candidate so they got to play the "we found someone better" card, even though they had no intention of hiring the first guy.

You mean StormFront?

I can't remember what the name of the forum was, that was almost 20 years ago. But this guy had written some deeply, deeply opinionated and explicit essays on his views and they were quite inappropriate. He was fairly prolific too. It's so weird to think back on how easy it was to just read his stuff and know who he was.

Predictable talking points devoid of substance.

For example, a brief excursion to the nearest Geocities archive will immediately demonstrate that access to the Internet was by no means something exclusive to tech nerds and academics even around year 2000.

Plus, the notion that "access" is even the right thing to measure is nonsensical. It's pretty obvious that big tech employees want to get a pat on the back for the fact that every homeless drug addict in US probably has a smartphone now. The real question is whether this "access" is actually beneficial to the poor or just creates a larger pool of individuals for big tech to parasitize and profiteer from.

For some people complaining about the state of the Internet seems to be an end in itself. We might have lost some hacker/open culture along the way, but there are still good bloggers, there are still good forums, there are even good Facebook groups for hobbies that simply weren't on the Internet back then.

You have to look for them just like you would have to look for a good IRC/Forum/Blog back then. The bar of entry is discoverability and what your interests are. I highly doubt that finding dedicated beekeeping community is harder now than it was 20 years ago...

Hacker culture is alive and well, but you aren't going to find it on Twitter. They even call HN "the orange site". Because orange = bad, got it? Unless you're code golfing, there's simply no way to "hack" or talk about anything worthwhile in 140 characters anyway.

Agreed. Many of my in-laws (with significant overlap of those who share click-bait articles after only reading the headlines) do not know how to:

- Reset their Facebook password

- Use more than 1 password for all of their accounts, social media, email, and banking included

- Use their TV if an HDMI device switches it to an unfamiliar input

- Stop (or start) push notifications for any app on their phone

The filter didn’t get lower, but a lower on-ramp was build that’s just low enough to let a 75yo create a Facebook account with their Hotmail.

There were tons of easy-to-use forums even in the late 90s that were full of people of all ages.

AOL had a gateway to the internet in like 1994, at that point the main barrier to access was the cost, not the difficulty.

> You had to be willing to put in more time, you had to understand more things, it was harder to use. You were much more likely to be a tech enthusiast or an academic if you were on the Internet even up until ~2008.

I have similar periods where I nostalgically remember the old internet through my favorite memories.

But whenever I look at old archives or use the Wayback Machine to revisit old websites I remember that the old internet had a huge amount of trolling, vitriol, and otherwise low-effort and toxic content. It’s easy to forget just how bad the flame wars could be or how toxic some of the internet spaces could become.

Even today, some of the most vitriolic and toxic online communities can trace their lineage back to the early 2000s internet scene. Facebook and Twitter get a lot of bad press, but the most toxic content I’ve seen comes from places like Reddit, 4Chan, and various offshoots.

Reddit is perhaps the perfect example of this dichotomy. Mention Reddit in a negative way and it’s defenders will quickly jump in to explain that it’s “not that bad if you pick the right subreddits”. Yet the front page is always full of misinformation and Reddit has a famous history of hosting a lot of subreddits that sexualized minors until they were reluctantly forced to make a policy against it due to negative news coverage.

Sure, smartphones brought a bunch of idiots.

But they also made the Internet so much more diverse and non-tech centered. Which is really beautiful.

The Internet has become far less diverse since smartphones. Because practically all "influencers" are now after the same mass-market demographic, that is all about passive consumption of the most mindless content imaginable. You have to look for specialized sites and venues to find anything genuinely interesting.

You always had to look. There's more to find now, and to a certain extent it's easier than ever to filter out crap if you're willing to throw out the few worthwhile FB or Reddit, etc, groups with all the rest.

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