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Comment by Spooky23 | Hacker News Reader

Well TBH the open internet provided a ton of benefit, but has metastasized into a force of misery and evil.

The near collapse of democracy in the United States, the various nasty impacts of social media, the death of professional journalism, the emergence of automated propaganda bots, etc are all negative impacts of open internet that are destroying society.

This may not be the answer, but neither is that status quo. We can't go back to 2003 or 1993.

The older people here live like it's 2003. It's not. HN is a throwback to those days, but we live in a world shaped by anonymous actors performing in bad faith.

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> The near collapse of democracy in the United States, the various nasty impacts of social media, the death of professional journalism, the emergence of automated propaganda bots, etc are all negative impacts of open internet that are destroying society.

So which of these is a walled-garden internet going to fix?

Actually which of these are even a consequence of the internet being open in the first place?

Pretty sure the answer to both is: none. These (perceived) issues are completely tangential and have absolutely nothing to do with the internet being open or closed.

This sounds a lot to me like: "People I don't like are using this thing, so let's ruin it for everyone."

You're still not going to like these people afterwards, nor are going to change them for the better by antagonizing everyone.

> The near collapse of democracy in the United States,

Banning anonymous speech would make it more dangerous to advocate against current policy, and speed up this collapse you're worried about.

Octogenarians saved democracy by mailing everybody ballots with their names on them. Controlling distribution channels is probably more important than anonymity, which is why the article points to things like “impact assessments” and other blockers to free distribution.

the death of journalism has nothing to do with the open internet; it mostly has to do with their complete failure to find a functional online business model outside advertising. I'm pretty sure propaganda bots are largely a result of the death of journalism -- given that the trusted sources of information have become largely and obviously untrustworthy, then your only option is to go to the "community", where conspiracy and propaganda can reign freely.

Social media is the only thing you could possibly blame on the open internet, but it has more to do with the same incentive problem as internet journalism -- advertising is money, and advertising needs "engagement". Social media, like journalism, needs propaganda and conspiracy and flamewars to thrive in order to exist. They have no real incentive to reduce it, except to make it sure it doesn't cross the point where it goes a little too far and they start getting accused of "causing the near collapse of democracy in the united states"

> Social media, like journalism, needs propaganda and conspiracy and flamewars to thrive

Absolutely not, you are perhaps caught in the 2023 notion of social media. Early social sites thrived without any ads and company or celeb profiles even, just like early FB. Social media is and should be about common user interactions, most importantly the inner circle of acquaintances and then interest groups. Everything else was just made up to drive clicks and ad revenue.

Depends what you describe as social media. Forums and boards are different than Twitter or TikTok. Usually social media is associated with wanting to present yourself while other platforms are focused around topics. One type might leak into the other, but usually the behavior and content is vastly different.

I keep my opinion that Instagram is for idiots for example. Yes, probably an ignorant perspective and it isn't exclusively the case, but an opinion I can very much live with.

> The near collapse of democracy in the United States

So you propose a controlled demolition? That's what abolishing the right or opportunity to speak anonymously amounts to. Professional journalists don't need to be protected from anonymous jeers, if anything is killing their industry it's their failure to monetize and maybe you can blame adblockers for that, but not anonymous speech. And frankly, professional journalists have always predominantly been the mouthpieces of wealthy. Need I remind you that professional journalists working for the likes of William Randolph Hearst cynically provoked the Spanish-American War for profit? The glory days of journalism are an illusion that appears when you look back at the past through rose-tinted glasses. Whatever the answer is, it isn't to silence those who already have the least power, those who can only speak anonymously without corporate apparatuses to back them up.

The status quo is acceptable. Some of the younger people here alarmists. Not every problem needs to be solved. Negative impacts can be tolerated.

> has metastasized into a force of misery and evil.

Has much is metastasizing, and how much is it just perceived to have done so because of failing media literacy about the internet? Basic late 90s/early 2000s internet safety was to assume untrustworthyness for everything. And regardless of how well a source proves itself, you keep giving it the side-eye.

But, where would people learn that media literacy today? The people and institutions that are branded as "serious" in our society don't have any financial incentive to want their audience to know critical reading/listening. Quite the opposite actually.

> a force of misery and evil.

My internet happy place is pretty dandy. Trust in media and democracy wasn't destroyed by the internet, on the contrary, it was destroyed by people that didn't want to accept different perspectives anymore, tried to silence others and consolidate the content on previously free internet platforms.

It's the other way around: Internet was a tool to share knowledge and now it's turning into a tool of oppression.

The open internet was fine, it's all the centralized orgs that done exactly that.

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