Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

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hn_throwaway_99

> 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.

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