Trolls, bots, and scammers make them necessary, at a minimum, and then the subliminal messaging from the cronies of politicians, etc. make them welcome. Bots are easier to make than ever before so you can’t compare the past with the present that easily. kbin.social died last year because of relentless spam bots posting garbage/malware links 100x/sec.
Comment on Big Tech Wants You Trapped. The Open Web Sets You Free
doodledup@lemmy.world 13 hours agoWhy moderation? The old internet didn’t have moderation. Why does everyone feel the need for moderation?
Flagstaff@programming.dev 13 hours ago
doodledup@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Computer bots always act a certain predictable way. You can filter out most bots easily based on time-based filters or other algorithms. The rest should not be moderated, except for illegal things like selling weapons, drugs, or hiring a hitman.
RightEdofer@lemmy.ca 13 hours ago
That hasn’t been true for a long time. Filtering bots has increasingly become more difficult, expensive, and sophisticated. Not to mention that there are still plenty of state sponsored bad actors using real people and hybrid approaches.
joel_feila@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
And the extremism follow.
mostlikelyaperson@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
What? The old internet absolutely had moderation, even back in the day of BBS.
stardust@lemmy.ca 5 hours ago
Guess you never used forums.
bassow@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
The old internet was hidden behind dial-up modems and TCP-IP stacks and weird telnet and usenet protocols. This complexity worked as a filter and the people using it were mostly academics, students, techies and other nerds (me amongst them). The moment uncle Bob could poke his way through social media on his phone from the shitter, the whole thing cascaded into Eternal September and “the old internet” was lost forever.