Comment by Negitivefrags | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Negitivefrags | Hacker News Reader

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I think your position is a pretty reasonable take but I’ll try to take it on as someone who still has the early 00s mentality.

I think the primary argument against it basically boils down to the fact that the internet hasn’t actually changed things as much as most people of our generation who grew up with it think, and many of the changes are better, not worse.

1) For harassment, it would be hard to do worse than the harassment we had in the past. Open racism has certainly declined since the 60s/70s. There was significantly more actual violence against people during that time than today.

2) Misinformation was certainly more prevelent in the past. Did you know that in 1970 30% of Americans thought the moon landing was faked? The number now is much much lower and has only gone down.

3) The idea that foreign powers were influencing America was certainly a lot bigger in the past. The “red scare” was a thing. People were mistrusting of thier neighbours and accusations of being communist abounded.

I think the main thing the internet has done is surface the craziness so that more people know about the fewer actual number of crazies.

> 1) For harassment, it would be hard to do worse than the harassment we had in the past.

I'm not sure I agree. As someone who was bullied pretty badly in middle school, I don't think I would have survived with modern social media. At least when I was a kid, I got a respite from the bullying when I went home. For a lot of kids today it's 24/7. Certainly mental health surveys of young people show that something drastic has occurred in the past decade, and it's not good.

> Did you know that in 1970 30% of Americans thought the moon landing was faked?

What is your source for this? I tried to find this info online and couldn't.

> 3) The idea that foreign powers were influencing America was certainly a lot bigger in the past. The “red scare” was a thing.

The idea that there were conspiracy theories about foreign influence in the US, vs. actual documented foreign influence and its effects are 2 different things.

> I think the main thing the internet has done is surface the craziness so that more people know about the fewer actual number of crazies.

I do agree it's possible the Internet just makes the crazy more apparent. My fear, though, is that it makes crazies "easier to find each other" so that, in a pre-Internet world, someone might have a "crazy" idea but then re-evaluate after not finding many compatriots, but these days it's so easy to find thousands and thousands of people who can "confirm" any batshit idea.

Given the context I had to check that one too. Found this:

> According to one 1976 Gallup poll, nearly 28% of Americans thought the moon landing was faked https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/moon-l...

Original source is paywalled, but presumably RS is describing the poll accurately, so I'd say this is true enough.

I would challenge you to show the effects of foreign influence. I haven't seen anything about what Russia did that even looked remotely effective. I recall reading an arstechnica article about it and I was shocked that they were citing posts with ~1.5k views... When facts aren't presented, the media make it sound like Russia had a major impact, but I can't find any facts that back that up.

I am much more concerned about foreign influence on the relatively centralized media outlets. For example, Bezos owns the Washington Post and does billions of dollars of business with China every year. All that economic activity gives china leverage they can use to suppress stories they don't like.

That is the real foreign influence to be worried about. Not them making posts and competing for attention with the same rules as everyone else.

I think this is pretty well researched: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/18/us/womens-march-russia-tr...

Two important points:

1. I do agree that calls of "Russian inteference!!" tend to be overblown. While I think it's clear there was Russian interference, I think it's also a way to minimize, for example, the real underlying discontent that was present "below the surface" and instead just blame the Russians.

2. That said, I think the evidence is pretty clear that from Russia's perspective, given how much they invest in these Internet propoganda tools, that they view it as an effective channel. And yes, opposing governments have always had propaganda arms, I think the big difference now is that it is much easier to obfuscate the source of that propaganda than it was in the pre-Internet era.

> 3) The idea that foreign powers were influencing America was certainly a lot bigger in the past. The “red scare” was a thing. People were mistrusting of thier neighbours and accusations of being communist abounded.

You're conflating two entirely different things. Actual foreign powers using information warfare to influence American politics has very little to do with the Red Scare.

The Red Scare is a political tactic of accusing political enemies and disfavored classes of secretly aiding foreign powers. It was happening then and it is still happening now. The modern Red Scare isn't "Russian disinformation on the internet", it's "the communists and the queers and and and are trying to overthrow the government and indoctrinate our children and destroy the economy and and and". It hasn't changed much from the 50s. It's not terribly uncommon to see people literally advocate for a new House Un-American Activities Commission.

I think most US citizens would associate Un-american activities with maga / Jan 6th / oath keepers stuff. I think that is more analogous to the modern 'red scare'.

I think it’s probably split on which party you vote for.

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