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Comment by shortrounddev2 | Hacker News Reader

Let's just stop it with the social media. They've been more trouble than they're worth. Turn online internet interactions back to 2005. Only forums are allowed and nobody has their real identity online at all; everyone is on a screen name

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You can't turn back time. Abuse, trolls, bots, astroturfing, farms are online because a big chunk of the population is online and therefore the malicious actors have recognized the potential of the Internet for manipulating society.

You can't turn back the clock, unless maybe also you uninvent AI, smartphones, cheap laptops and desktop computers, and widely available internet.

Agreed -- I realize this is a bit of a hot take, but I think we should just blanket-ban all forms of social media.

even youtube? it's basically public infrastructure at this point. There are so many times teardown guides on there have saved my hide

we should ban the opaque algorithms that prioritise "engagement", or at least require explicit consent (e.g. "do you want to get recommendations for content that may make you angry and turn you against your friends?"). YouTube is fine, as long as you're looking for something specific and informative.

I turned off my viewing history at some point because the YT algorithm seemed content to point me to increasingly garbage and sensationalist content (presumably because I had already seen all the good material about a given topic).

It's such a strange thing to consider from the 30,000 foot view. If we humans know anything at all about human behavior, we know it's really easy to choose the wrong thing. I remember choosing a pair of flashy tennies when I was 12 because someone I was trying to impress wore the same brand. They fit and lasted like crap. it was the wrong choice, and soon I went back to my usual far less flashy but far more functional brand. But what if every TV show I watched advertised the crap flashy shoes? What if it became THE thing to buy that year? That's internet marketing in a nutshell. A bot thinks every choice you've made is the right, correct, most "me" choice I have ever made, ever, which clearly pleased me. So here's more and more and more of the same! And what if I began getting pressured by peers- or even bullied- for not wearing those crap flashy shoes? I'l bet you eventually I'd relent and get another pair? It's a prison of the mind that leads to nowhere but an inescapable minefield of incorrect assumptions about our behavior.

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