Are a few people ruining the internet for the rest of us?
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
>I noticed something: most of the irritation came from a handful of people, sometimes only one or two. If I could only ignore them, the computer conferences were still valuable. Alas, it's not always easy to do.
This is what killed Usenet,[1] which 40 years ago offered much of the virtues of Reddit in decentralized form. The network's design has several flaws, most importantly no way for any central authority to completely delete posts (admins in moderated groups can only approve posts), since back in the late 1970s Usenet's designers expected that everyone with the werewithal to participate online would meet a minimum standard of behavior. Usenet has always had a spam problem, but as usage of the network declined as the rest of the Internet grew, spam's relative proportion of the overall traffic grew.
That said, there are server- and client-side anti-spam tools of varying effectiveness. A related but bigger problem for Usenet is people with actual mental illness; think "50 year olds with undiagnosed autism". Usenet is such a niche network nowadays that there has to be meaningful motivation to participate, and if the motivation is not a sincere interest in the subject it's, in my experience, going to be people with very troubled personal lives which their online behavior reflects. Again, as overall traffic declined, their relative contribution and visibility grew. This, not spam, is what has mostly killed Usenet.
[1] I am talking about traditional non-binary Usenet here
Usenet had a nonstop spam generator called Google Groups that shit it up for years. It wasn't just intentional spam but clueless people came in through there and bumped 20+ year old threads.
The other factor related to the decline was ISP's stopped bundling usenet service in the 2000's.
There are sill a handful of active groups but unfortunately at least a third of the remaining active lost access when the Google spam service stopped.
But continuining to ignore it into the 2000s was clearly nonsensical.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/22/business/facebook-content-mod...
I imagine it’d be good at getting rid of a lot of modern plagues on social media as they seem to have a small, predictable and shitty vocabulary.
... what I really need is a something that detects 'text in images', i mean, I don't mind if you took a photo of a sign in the real world but posting screenshots is a bad smell, only a tiny fraction are wholesome like this:
https://bsky.app/profile/up-8.bsky.social/post/3lseycg7nl22p
Their responses are curt, sure, but to them they are not outside the norm of the field.
(One reason I stick to CW - being an asshole on there is too time consuming)
... --- / .. - / ... . . -- ... .-.-.-
You can be an asshole on FT8, but it's harder to do.
I don't know if the worst example is the folks who got mad because I used to use my HT via the repeater to contact people in Canada 250+ miles away when tropospheric ducts were open
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropospheric_propagation
or the guy from the weather service who was mad that nobody on our daily net had information about a localized storm that really scared him because he saw what could have been a tornado on his NEXRAD. I told him, "look, none of us live in that spot and the only way you're going to get more information is if more people think ham radio is a welcoming hobby"
Not to say you shouldn't do it, but you should be aware of what you're signing up for.
Hopefully there will be follow-up studies.
Alternative explanation: The online world is "real" and the real-life interactions are "fake", at least as far as political opinions are concerned.
The social conventions for online and face-to-face interactions are still markedly different (with good reason). When face-to-face, we generally care a lot more about maintaining a pleasant conversational environment and usually avoid things that would insult or hurt the person we are talking with. The focus is also a lot more about everyday issues and a lot less about abstract political topics like it would be online.
All of this means that face-to-face, we will probably talk a lot less about divisive political topics than we would do online.
But it does not mean we have fewer opinions on those topics, only that we won't show them so easily.
So it could be that the online discourse really is a truthful mirror of the political division of society, only that in real life, those divisions are much more hidden behind layers of politeness.
So perhaps instead of "in real life, those divisions are much more hidden behind layers of politeness"; "in real life, divisions turn out to be largely illusory (or more moderate; or more understandable) once you get to know someone".
There is no illusion about how most rural Christian Americans think about gay people, minorities, liberal west coast elites, Muslims, etc.
I'm in the second most liberal county in the Northeast US and I'd say on a frigid cold night and they called a Code Blue people who go to church are manning the homeless shelter while LGBT...IQA+#@?^! people are tweeting about how Sarah McBride is a sell-out. Then again, the people I know who go to to church are the people who've been to federal prison because they stormed the gates protesting a nuclear weapons faclity.
I know a few socially liberal devout Christians. I know many others that on the individual level would try their best to make anyone of any religion, sexuality, etc comfortable. But still vote for politicians that campaign on policies that hurt the group.
I have a lot of respect for the values of many Mormons such as Steven Covey but boy does it drive me crazy that they pulled out of supporting the Scouts when the Scouts opened up to gays.
People have numerous reasons for voting the way they do, I know from conversations that there were people who weren't thinking from a "always blue" or "always red" frame but saw the last election as a comparison. They saw Trump and Harris as bad alternatives and picked the one they thought was least bad. Overall the college-educated voted for Harris and others voted for Trump. The argument that "Trump is bad for democracy" wasn't as salient for people as "Harris is ineffective".
The modern MAGAs would have called Reagan a “RINO”.
For that matter, I moved to New York in 1990s when we had a Republican Senator Al D'Amato, a Republican Governor George Pataki, and Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani to be replaced by Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Personally I think one party rule is a bad thing because it makes it hard for us to vote out corrupt politicians.
Anyone who speaks favorably about marginalized groups is dropped into the "anti-institution" box
This is why you need a Mamdani to convince the center-left that it's not divisive to do so (& it's great that he's prioritizing the economic marginalization angle)
With Harris there is another mixed signal independent of her stage skills: swingvoters cannot decide if she is pro-or anti-institution (support from people like Powell-Jobs is counter-productive)
(Aside: let me know if that was confused)
As mentioned by Ezra Klein, Trump is a moderate-- my additional take is that he is intentionally so. Due to dark traits he knows to kayfabe extremism-- this provokes the divisive elements on the voting left, but the politically influential on the right do not see this as anti-institution
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/17/central-park...
He started the dog whistle campaign of Obama not being an American way before he thought about running for President.
He’s been pro tariff since the 90s also.
During his first run and his first time in office, the institutionalist wing of the Republican Party fought him tooth and nail.
"Trump is now seen (and wants to be seen) by the right+(white) center left as moderate"
Imho Ezra Klein explains it better here https://youtu.be/Sx0J7dIlL7c?t=53m6s
(Is he going for "Leto I Atreides"?)
LDS forbade Black people from participating in the ordinances of its temples until 1978.
Mormons have a reputation of being sexist, there is evidence for that, Salt Lake City has the highest rate of cosmetics consumption in the US. However...
I used to give blood and to make it more interesting I toured all the places where the Red Cross set up centers, and one place was the Mormon Temple. Usually you don't see a lot of women giving blood, not least because they don't make as many red blood cells as men. I saw at least as many women giving blood as men there and, I don't know anything about them, but they were not having the kind of "tradwife" conversations that "hippie mamas" have in Ithaca, but were talking about international travel, business, volunteering and all sorts of adventures. They may well have been tradwives but they were certainly not just tradwives.
I see your point — I think more than a couple Twilight Zone episodes that Serling penned explored the "monsters" that are within us.
But I disagree. Because I think when you are face-to-face you're more likely to see nuance in your option and others. "I hate gays!" you say. But then you find yourself chatting with your neighbor and his husband and have been thankful for them, on several occasions, for helping you get your car started in the winter, or whatever.
"Black people scare me!" But then you have to admit that the two black families that go to your church are not threatening at all....
They are still racist pricks. The ones at church are just the “good ones” who do a good enough job of code switching - ie so the racists say “you’re not like most Black people”.
(yes I’m Black).
At least that's how I see the "nuanced racists" in my life (I'm white, fwiw, so it's not the other side view you were probably looking for).
I say this specifically because the one truly effective intervention we know of that can destroy bigotry is getting to know someone of the group they are bigoted against. My layman's guess as to what makes the difference between someone who just labels the black/queer/etc person they know as "one of the good ones" and someone who actually starts to change is whether a) the former are personal friends with the latter, and b) the latter is willing & able to speak up and say "just making an exception for me is kinda shitty, other people like me aren't bad either, and if you keep talking about them like that I won't be able to stay your friend".
They don't change, because their circumstances don't change. I don't doubt that there would be some change if they got really, actually close to someone they are normally bigoted against. I'm just saying it doesnt happen, and thats why they don't change.
This guy is famous for converting kkk members by just showing them that they can be friends with a black guy. They didn't just write him off as 'one of the good ones', it undermined their fundamental racist beliefs.
But the point is that the observation that the world seems nuts and a liberal city in the West feels cosmopolitan isn't necessarily wrong - the liberal West is a global minority. Illiberal views are the global majority. What did we expect when we started merging thought globally? And most of the world isn't even 'online' yet in sense they've joined these spaces, they're marginally connected based on how you measure it, or in their own regional spaces.
It's an interesting theory, and I almost want to agree, but I can assure you that the same approximate percentage of extremist idiots exist in real-world NYC as online. If you doubt me, go to the fountain in Washington Square Park pretty much whenever, and you will meet them.
Most people are moderate on most issues. That's just statistics...and it's actually backed up by all sorts of polling.
Even polling “experts” like Silver regularly make huge misses on binary questions (his Florida bet) let alone stuff like the Selzer poll. It’s really hard to take any complex issue polling seriously. It’s a tough sell to convince me that sure, these binary choice election polls with a verifiable result (the election) are wrong, but totally unverifiable public opinion polling with possibly framed questions represent reality.
For all that the people in the tails of the distributions want to believe otherwise, the difference between "red state" and "blue state" is a few percentage points, nationwide.
They aren’t deducing voting behavior from your positions. They are just asking you who you were going to vote for and they can’t get it right.
Given those facts, I can’t see any reason to believe even the results of a fraught question like “do you consider yourself a moderate?”
When you zoom in on a small area, sure. But globally? Pick a card and you'd have to squint to say most people are moderate on most issues.
Examples:
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2015/11/18/global-support...
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/06/25/global-divide-...
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/28/who-likes...
As for the second one (about homosexuality), the article tells a fairly nuanced story about polarization across countries, with rising overall support, and a lot of countries...in the middle. That bar chart mid-way down the article looks exactly like what I'd expect.
> When you zoom in on a small area, sure. But globally?
Yes. The bigger the population, the more I expect to see a bell curve. Central limit theorem.
Moderate-ness is, more or less, a fallacy. People believe that since we have A and B that the correct answer must be somewhere in the middle - intuitively, you would think, somewhere really in the middle. Like if I want fried chicken, but my friend wants to eat-in to get something healthy, then the right answer is getting something out to eat that's somewhat healthy.
So, people who are unaware on issues are "naturally" moderate, because intuitively it seems to make a lot of sense.
But, not actually. If we just look at history, choose virtually any point, when are the moderates right? Almost never. The 3/5ths compromise was shit, for instance. Civil Unions? Remember those? Yeah, that was stupid and we should've just given homosexuals marriage. I mean, what were moderates saying during the Civil Rights movement in the 60s? I'll give you a hint... it was not good. Yeah, that aged like milk too.
You would think, given the history of failure that is moderate policy, people might be a tad hesitant to be moderate on an issue. You would think, they might dig deeper.
But no. We all have this idea that this point in time, and in this particular place, is unique. Our politics, now, are much different. No no, you see, it's not the same. This time we are right.
Of course, this is slightly better than social conservatism, which has a track record of always being bad. Forever. In every culture. Across the entire globe. But no guys, this time it's right! Never mind Confucianism or whatever, this is different!
We've all had that mad idiot ranting at the pub. You smile and nod and move somewhere else. What's his potential audience? Not so much. That same person is now Tweeting >500 times a day, replying to all sorts of posts with misinformation and (typically) vitriol and insults. All of these people are quite unpleasant in real life too (well, until they get Buzz Aldrin'd anyway).
We just need to send them to the moon to improve a bit.
I seriously question whether there was ever a time where the masses weren't influenced by "a few people", for better or worse.
The numbers don't move me and can't be the sole arbitrator of truth when the direction of humanity is involved.
So while I'm not surprised that people report feeling less inclined toward inflammatory media after disengaging it, I just don't believe that there is a grand collective that we can return to that is free from the influential few.
The issue is that there are many masses and many fews at odds to find their pair and wont to view the others as the outrageous ones.
People can hardly curate outfits at their own discretion. They're going to defer to people who are deferring to what amounts to a cell of 3-4 guys linked to a larger apparatus of taste to find out what to wear, what to watch and what to think.
That's just the way it is.
The average person is well-meaning and reasonable up unto the this eerie point in their life where they feel existentially threatened and thrust on the stage of public opinion for the criticism of others.
So I think that suggesting that society isn't toxic in it's current form and all it is is that we're just viewing the world through this funhouse lens because of a few bad guys on social media is a conceited perspective because the world as it is indeed is a carnival of ideas surrounding the marketplace and the internet is its pavilion, not its public square.
And to dare to suggest that there is in fact one single true direction for people to choose demands contending against all the goofy ways people are turning and admitting that things are as bad as they appear, in spite of whatever ways we can come up with to assume the good faith of the common man.
The irony is that this same outlet will unapologetically make its bones off the incessant reporting on all the ways that society is under peril. Sometimes obscuring these reports with solicitations to fund this effort.
There's a complete lack of ... unity? Everything including the weather is now pigeon-holed into something political (and therefore "tribal"). Sock hops and the soda fountain were before my time, but I can speak for the 70's and say it was not this crazy.
Nut jobs like The John Birch Society (just to pick on one group of the era) were not given a global megaphone. Say what you want about newspapers, etc. but the "Fourth Estate" had to earn reader's trust, could not expect to just act to inflame the fringe elements of society.
But we're free to say this thing was better in the 70's without implying all things were. The internet has created a lot of problems that we did not have before is all I am really saying.
Was it Marshall McLuhan say something about man devolving into tribalism with the expansion of digital media? The individuation of the literate mind as opposed to the shared vision of the tribal, oral mind; new technology replacing one thing and simultaneously bringing back another from the past.
I want to say that the notion of unity was subsidized by a faith in liberal democracy. Even during the 60s and the 70s, my impression as that the language of activists back then, and consequently the conceptualization of their ideals, didn't stray far from a common dialect of the establishment, rooted in some kind of shared interpretation of democracy during that time. At least in a shared interpretation fundamentally, with conflict stemming from subsidiary ends.
Maybe what we're faced with now is the natural progression of the dissolution of a shared interpretation for social cohesion and whatever's meaningful behind why we want to bond with each other. So we tear away from each other in order to come back together. And it will never be exactly how it was before and maybe that's for the better in the end. Because what it took to get here wasn't great to begin with.
This is how I feel for the past 8 years or so; like I've been forced to become more and more deranged, because it seems like everyone either fully supports or tacitly agrees with an insane narrative that one way or another paints me or people like me as an enemy.
I can't just take what anyone says at face value anymore, or give the benefit of the doubt. I know that as soon as they say a key word, or behave in a specific way, or even just dress in a specific way that I'm dealing with some kind of narrative that is openly hostile. It may not even be that I disagree, just that I don't want to signal myself that way. I just want to form my own opinions, but that's usually difficult and often insulting to other people. People flip like a switch as soon as they sense you're not going to fully agree with them.
The postmodern bent of our discourse is really hard to deal with because you get immediately deconstructed into one of maybe a dozen categories when you say/do anything: lib, grifter, shill, racist, snowflake, bootlicker, chud, commie, fascist, creep, etc.
I can't even cut my hair without someone categorizing me based off of it.
I mostly consume media through an RSS feed nowadays, and it hasn't helped at all, although I now don't have as much "content" to deal with emotionally.
With RSS I don't have to relitigate arguments and ideas in my own head in order to feel secure as much as before, but the way I interact with people is still deeply warped by the entire discourse.
The contrast between the online off-line world that the author in the article alludes to is indicative of this. It's the unspoken role where we all know that speaking out has consequences often that impacts are economic well-being. There would be no way to get farm something for which there is no demand for...
The more suppressed a view is, the more extreme the place where that view is allowed ends up being.
Those places don't normally allow rational debate either. They're just a different kind of toxic, and have their own rules for what will get you dog piled.
Finding out that the people that share your views are people that you wouldn't want to associate with (I'm putting words in your mouth here, I'm sorry) is how I find I was able to grow up intellectually.
It's kinda sad to watch places you enjoyed fall into it, though. One particular subreddit that I've never seen be overtly political before now has an effectively endorsed opinion on someone (not Trump). There's no point engaging with it, because piling on more hate is the only socially acceptable opinion there.
Regardless, if you like the guy, you should defend him. If you can do it in a noncombative way you might at least get some people to back off a bit.
I'm not sure what that means when I see people say that.
Is it "People don't like it when I'm a dick so I have to hide when I do it?"
Because if it's not that, just say what you think. I'd like to think I do, in public with co-workers, etc. They judge me then by that and I kind of deserve their judgement (which ever way it goes).
Haven't insults like that been illegal in Germany since the 1800s? This hardly seems new. It's just how the Germans like to run their laws.
But the EU, and Germany in particular, has upped the ante criminalizing obvious satire against politicians in a manner obviously meant to shield a very unpopular political class.
Because the democratic and legitimate law has determined that you cant. You don't get to argue about the law of another culture from first principles. The laws of Germany are at the discretion of the Germans. That's what it means to be sovereign.
Oh you absolutely do. You might not have the authority to change them, but anyone is welcome to criticize the intent or impact of any law in any country at any time.
Besides, Americans have decided that it's legal for Americans to argue about German laws, so you actually don't get to criticize it when they do.
Even if we admit the criminalization of insults among private individuals, what makes it pernicious to criminalize insulting politicians is that they are powerful.
Politicians, as a class, effectively control mass media, state violence, and the purse. One of the only effective curbs on their power is ridicule.
In America this is called punching up.
Pray tell me, would you be OK if a EU police arrested a comedian for mocking [1] Putin or Trump? If not, your position is strictly partisan therefore not universal, and therefore self serving.
Anyway, we found the EUist.
[1] I said mocking, not encouraging violence
> a EU police arrested a comedian for mocking Putin or Trump
The EU doesn't have a police force, nor does it legislate the moral standards of the member states. Making this some sort of EU issue is ridiculous.
You have an unhealthy relationship with the laws if you decide to make the contrast that sharp. There is in fact a difference between making fun of your local politicians and making fun of a foreign dictator. I'm not saying that justifies differences in laws, I'm also not NOT saying that. I am saying you'd have to present at real concrete case for anybody to make any useful determination.
EU police -> EU member state police force.
A bit wordy. I know there isn't a EU police force. Just like there will never be EU bonds (see what I did there?)
"There is in fact a difference between making fun of your local politicians and making fun of a foreign dictator."
Trump is a foreign dictator? He is not mocked ruthlessly in EU media?
Anyway, I'm not impressed by local media mocking foreign leaders for the same reason I prefer that the CCP spy on my (personal) devices than the FBI: jurisdiction.
But, go ahead, call one of your ministers an idiot or a pimmel under your real name.
And don't give me the BS "the charges were dropped": being criminally charged is scary, stressful and expensive.
For instance, just a few days ago, a very popular TikTokker doxxed a father and asked his followers to report that father to CPS to try to get his kids taken away for expressing an opinion that they didn't like. That opinion? That children can't consent. The TikTokker isn't in jail, and he didn't lose his platform or otherwise suffer any consequences, because even though he did an extremely evil thing, his opinion was aligned with the "politically correct", and the father's opinion was "politically incorrect".
There are many, many instances of this happening - I've both seen them online, and witnessed it personally.
If you haven't seen it yourself, you're probably in a social bubble.
Here in Australia since 2024 it is illegal to dox someone online and it is considered a criminal offence. So that father would have the ability to press charges against that Tiktoker. Might be challenging if one of them is outside of said country law.
I dox myself by using my real name, talk about where I live, my age, etc. — all the time. I like to think that also keeps me honest — keeps me from not posting something I wouldn't say to someone's face.
Having their own firmer identity, adults may tut-tut at a new personality emerging they disagree with, but few of us ask why such personalities are finding root at all.
(Whoops.)
I have however observed an increasing intolerance for diverging opinions, especially coming from the "politically incorrect" group.
They are not afraid of being called out, they have become intolerant of being called out.
I saw this the most in the pre-Musk Twittersphere, but it has metastisized since then. Of course, it's unclear if these types are genuine, trolls, or simply a product of the medium itself, so take it with a grain of salt.
> You're way underplaying the aplifying role of anonymity and connectedness
Fully agree with this, though. I suspect this draws out the worst behavior regardless of professed political/moral affiliation
This seems to be an inherent feature of any federated, but otherwise rule-less system.
Online I would say that every discussion across the political spectrum seems to be dominated by intolerance. Also the left, I agree.
I'm specifically concerned with how those communities affect the real world people I talk to outside of the internet, and there I find that the "anti PC" crowd takes their philosophy along with them much more readily.
My experience tends to align with this, as well. But I don't actually see it as a problem in the same way you do.
After all, if someone's online behavior and their "real world" behavior align, doesn't that just mean they're being authentic?
Which my experience tends to agree with: the "anti PC" crowd, in my experience, is more "authentic" than their "PC crowd" equivalents. I don't agree with their views per se, but they tend to be more internally consistent about those views, which is commendable. A lot of "being PC" plays out as posturing, which often feels inauthentic and fake. I think this is consistent with what you're saying, but it's really a critique of both sides in different ways.
I think lack of perceived authenticity is a large part of the Democratic party's current struggles with membership. Or at least it's a thing that makes me take them less seriously and to see their ideas/proposals in a poorer light, and I can only assume there are some (many?) people who feel the same.
I'm not sure how you get out of the fact that game theory suggests there will always be people operating selfishly like this and reaping benefit from it as such. You see it in ecosystems too. It is a perfectly valid evolutionary strategy to learn to rob a nest vs making your own way. The question is how we balance these realities about our animal selves and even try and counter them for collectively beneficial reasons, that also won't just be subverted for someone else. Especially as technology grows to be more esoteric and powerful in the future.
And please don't ever say "social media" or "social plataforms" because those are not social. Those are indeed anti-social platforms. You can call them that.
Take a look at twitter and what is has become. It was already bad.
Just think about how embarrassing some friends or family can be. Think about why you went online in the first place.
To the contrary, the bigoted relative was no longer invited to various get togethers.
Online you can easily post several hundred times a day, and/or reach a huge audience.
Like the Otaku described by Azuma [1] there is a definite regression in terms of the of use of language and ideology, essentially a reversion from a language-using animal which can create unlimited meanings by putting together a finite vocabulary in a grammatical system as opposed to words that have a meaning in and of itself.
For instance, anti-resilience activists will run you out of some communities because you use the word "snowflake" because this is a dog whistle that makes them bark. With their lexicon of triggering words in hand you can talk about the dangers of anti-resilience all day and you're talking right past them.
This style of communication is especially dangerous for marginalized communities because they create a bubble of false consensus that makes them think somebody agrees with them but doesn't do the hard work of explaining themselves and doing the even harder work of bringing about a change of heart across the society would be necessary to do something widespread and durable problems such as the mutual lack of respect between black Americans and the police.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Otaku-Database-Animals-Hiroki-Azuma/d...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S23522...
Assuming the key points are valid (they seem reasonable), I'd argue that we'd probably be in a better position with social media if it weren't for the platforms taking on managing our interactions with others. If people had their own software/agents that would filter according to your own needs, we'd likely see less toxicity - but this comes tumbling down as I suspect the platforms would see a dent in their monetisation, and so naturally they wouldn't be in favour.
Isn't that just another echo bubble? Telegram doesn't manage interactions yet every large channel is just an echo bubble or a cesspit.
IMHO most human beings are simply not ready for this ultrawide real time communication networks.
I handle the downvoted comments by 1) upvoting (but of course) but then also 2) adding a comment to the effect of "Hey, I upvoted you because ...".
We've all seen the downvoted comment start to "fade back in" by doing this.
Heck, I frequently even upvote greyed out comments I disagree with because I kind of root for the underdog anyway. Or, kind of as you say, think it is unfair (at least when the downvoted comment was sincere and not troll-bait or whatever).
Personally I try to avoid downvoting a comment if I am unwilling to leave a comment as to why. This open the doors to my getting downvotes as well if I am off base.
Regardless, watching my own comments get downvoted has been a good lesson for me. Sometimes I rethink my position ("Am I missing something here?") or, if nothing else, I rethink the tone I used ("Guess I need to make a better case next time — not come across so antagonistic.").
(Corny examples, but you get the idea.)
The issue is tracked at https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/18128 .
So, even on Mastodon you still need some self-care. Avoid following popular accounts, block and silence generously.
An iconic example, from the late 1800's - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_Spanish%E2%8...
My impression is that people who find "the internet" bad are simply not imagining that they are sampling a vast space of agents and of course if they simply stop at after the first 10 bad things they will stop pretty quickly. It's basically unbounded what you can find. You must accept that.
I would be very interested in understanding more how people are classifying these two regimes in terms of them being "ruined" or not. Hearing the internet is "ruined" feels a bit like hearing "books are ruined" or something. It just seems bizarre. It is very easy to curate what you read. It is not so easy to curate real life encounters.
This is instructive. It suggests that, unless they get paid, people aren't inclined to unfollow conversations that are destructive or misleading. It supports the idea that, over time, toxic conversations naturally attract an increasing number of followers.
In the old Usenet days, apart from the few moderated forums, there was no mechanism to remove trolls/ideologues, consequently it made the Wild West resemble a tea party by comparison. In modern times, everything is different, yet everything is the same. Those who operate online forums have every incentive to tolerate abusive participants, because they attract people to the platform, to see ads.
My favorite story about this comes from Howard Stern, a so-called "shock jock". Owners of radio stations began to worry that Stern's bizarre content would drive people away. But audience studies discovered something: people who agreed with Stern stayed tuned in, just to hear what he would say next. And people who disagreed with Stern ... wait for it ... also stayed tuned in, to hear what he would say next.
This may seem orthogonal, but it seems people don't learn debate rules in school any more. If debate rules were enforced online, it would kill off much of the toxic content, but would greatly reduce the number of participants.
Imagine a world where trolls are expelled from fora because they refuse to address any legitimate topic, preferring personal attacks and other logical fallacies, behavior that would get them expelled from a formal college debate.
But I may expect too much. We're talking about a population of average intelligence, the same people who asked Dave Brubeck "How many musicians are in your quartet?"
By de-prioritizing "engagement" perhaps?
Possibly a good idea, but the incentives of an advertising-based business model seem to be in direct opposition to doing so.
And b) i could block that one person on each platform with one click on all my accounts, including screenshots of their posts.
In real life i know the person talking to me is a unique individual and not one of several duplicate persons bc of physical limitations.
Wishful thinking: we are reaching that point where AI could solve this instead of AI just making the issue worse.
And rising.
The result of leveraging one-to-many persuasive marketing-type efforts until its footprint encroaches on an unleveraged many-to-many ecosystem bad enough to compromise former utility more & more as technology advances.
As opposed to mainstream users who should be gaining more from the same underlying infrastructure as improvements in technology occur. Which should theoretically have continued happening but it got reversed by overwhelming force.
Hateful people on social media? They are annoying, but at least, I can ignore them.
On the other, why weren't newspapers hyping to increase circulation 50 years ago? Or were they?
The differences in my opinion: - slower timescale - discourse and outage evolved over days and weeks instead of minutes and hours - much more muted feedback mechanism - sales numbers could not tell you which headline or article drove in particular conversion - much more muted comment mechanism - people could and did write letters to the editor, including idiots and assholes, but only a small percentage were ever printed. Those that were printed, were at the very least read by someone at the paper before being approved.
I had never seen 'pc' used as a short hand for percent (%) until recently in an article (can't remember where), where they used 'pc' repeatedly. Unfortunately the article was also talking about the 'pence' of money, so I found it impossible to figure out from context whether they were talking about a 'pence' or a 'percent'.
In the US, I have seen 'pct' used instead of '%', but not too frequently. I had never seen 'pc' used until recently.
A couple of possibilities:
* For plain-text content that might migrate into a Web page (or emanate from a Web page), the special meaning of '%' in that context might motivate some to avoid the character entirely.
* When typing on a cell phone, one may want to avoid '%' because it often requires shifting to an alternate character set, typing a non-alpha character, then shifting back.
Teletypes didn't start out with a % symblol.
It's a psychology study, a study from a field whose results famously fail to be replicated roughly 2/3 of the time, even when they meet the 0.05 P-factor criterion that assures publication.
Also, many modern psychology studies don't have control groups, and don't consider the null hypothesis. Too much trouble.
Also also, a paywalled study funded by taxpayers. Wasn't this practice supposed to have been stopped?
That's certainly one problem -- many have argued that it's too easy to meet this evidentiary standard, which explains why so many weak, non-replicable psychology papers get published.
You comment comparing psychology to physics is apt -- the evidentiary standard in hard science fields is much higher.
It got too big and then it became worth the investment to advertise in, the meta was established, and then that was that.
If you enjoy something, you’ll like/heart/upvote it and move on. But if it outrages you, chances are you’ll go straight to the comment section to argue. Maybe you’ll repost it with your own take to show everyone how much you disagree. More „engagement” = more time to shove ads in your face = a nice juicy bonus for the ad execs who run all the websites now.
In general there are a lot more "farming" type activities going on these days. Farming various kinds of engagement from different people, scientifically tuned much like in agriculture / animal husbandry. It's fascinating to watch unfold.
I think you're in for a surprise in the next few decades.
EDIT: what am I even saying? The article comes from an UK media outlet, they should fully know by now that toxic behavior in the real world cannot be separated from media exposure. This is uncanny.
> The contrast between the online world and my daily reality has only gotten more jarring.
One or two generations immersed in primarily online activity will change your opinion about how safe the real world is from toxic behavior.
> In a paper I recently published [...]
Paywalled.
> we paid people a few dollars to unfollow the most divisive political accounts on X
For a psychology study, I fail to see how you considered the full mechanism of incentives behind their choice. If the paper was open, I would look for a control group in the study. Was there even one?
> Platforms could easily redesign their algorithms to stop promoting the most outrageous voices.
No, they can't. If you are putting your hope on that prospect, I think you are insane. It's not even about will, it cannot be done.
Social media isn’t monolithically harmful The article suggests a small group ruins the internet, but this ignores research showing social platforms also democratize discourse, enabling civic engagement and marginalized voices.
Not all online “distortion” amounts to damage While the piece emphasizes filter bubbles and radical users, algorithmic content curation exists in print and broadcast media too—these are framing tools, not always societal toxins.
Logical leaps undermine its claims The Guardian implies isolated incidents escalate to systemic ruin—this mirrors slippery-slope reasoning. Without data demonstrating measurable harm (e.g., polarization metrics), it remains speculative.
Forces of good are often overlooked Platforms frequently host prosocial behavior, from mental health communities to humanitarian fundraising—yet the article omits these evidence-backed positives.
Assumes a universal “ruin” standard By framing a few actors as “ruining the internet,” the article treats degradation as a one-size-fits-all harm. But norms vary culturally—with differences in how “ruin” is perceived.
Some gaps
1. Integrate empirical data: Use actual trends in polarization, mental health outcomes, or misinformation impact, instead of anecdotal evidence.
2. Compare with legacy media: Acknowledge traditional media distortions to avoid caricaturing social platforms uniquely.
3. Balance the picture: Highlight both negative and positive digital outcomes for nuance.
4. Contextualize “harm”: Define ruin in culturally plural terms, avoiding universal moral assumptions.
I remember where was some media coverage about 'The disinformation dozen' during COVID; what a load of rubbish. How can anyone believe this? In a world with billions of people connected to the internet, only 12 are spreading disinformation? This is impossible. There are surely at least 100 North Korean agents working full time being paid to spread non-stop disinformation... This is a really conservative guess. Now do that for every country who have a beef against the west you probably have tens of thousands of people being paid to spread disinformation. Then you probably have thousands of people spreading disinformation as a way to promote their books... Then you probably have millions of institutional insiders spreading various bits of contrarian information once in a while (which would be mislabeled as disinformation). It's not a small number of people either way. It's a LOT of people... Suggesting that it's only 12 people is comically wrong! I'm sorry but if you ever believed that, you need to adjust your worldview because you've been living in a bubble. It's not only physically impossible statistically, it's literally impossible to measure so you'd be wrong just for accepting any fixed number (let alone a tiny number)...
The mainstream view is a simplified view and so there will always be people who can see fundamental flaws in parts of the mainstream argument because they have deeper knowledge on certain aspects than a journalist has. Mainstream news is written by journalists, they never know quite as much as the insiders. So anytime a news article is published, there will be a small number of people out there who know the full story and they will be surprised at the discrepancies between the story and their first-hand experience of it. If you're an expert in anything, it's likely a matter of time before you come across some media story about your field which you know doesn't quite correspond to reality. Once you experience that, it makes you doubt all media coverage of other fields too. It's just a fact that the media isn't fully accurate. It doesn't matter how reputable the organization is; they have a near monopoly so this allows them to add a lot of spin and make a lot of 'mistakes'.
Illustration: (Emily's Quotes)
https://emilysquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/capitali...
The Internet's Original Sin It's not too late to ditch the ad-based business model and build a better web. [0]
By Ethan Zuckerman
The Internet Apologizes [1]
Even those who designed our digital world are aghast at what they created. A breakdown of what went wrong — from the architects who built it.
By Noah Kulwin
[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/adver...
[1] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/04/an-apology-for-the-i...
Many many people were vaccine hesitant. It was not a false perception that many were hesitant.
I spent a lot of time with friends and family convincing them how to think about the risks and to convince them to take the vaccine.
What I was trying to say is that many people (who are not vaccine skeptics), were hesitant to take a covid vaccine, and their hesitancy (contrary to the article’s assertion), was not due to a handful of people who spread misinformation.