Comment on I wonder why the widespread adoption of the internet hasn't been good for society as a whole.
Signtist@bookwyr.me 3 days agoFair, I used the term as a catch-all that ends up inadvertently catching less-harmful sites as well. However, while there are only a few toxic sites, they're the most popular, and even when they fade into obscurity, they're replaced by other new toxic sites. They're designed to draw people in, so it doesn't really matter how few there are, they're always among the most popular websites on the internet.
hansolo@lemmy.today 2 days ago
I mean, try as we might to blame Zuck or whatever like this is a new problem, it’s also a standard with humans that we do love our own toxic self-reinforcing mess sometimes when we get in a groove with it. The Taliban literally fought and won two wars to uphold their brand of misogyny, ignorance, and general illiteracy. Nazis. The Confederacy and all their vestigial holdover racism. The Communist Revolution in China where they just executed academics because math and physics did not support the CCP.
The barriers previously were just access to a wider group of people with one’s own brand of mess, and the point of the internet in general was to lower the friction of communication. For any many bronies out there living in Bumblefuck, AL that have finally found their people, there’s just as many old forums like Something Awful that still exist that are cursed corners of the internet, and have been since the 90s. They’re just the internet version of that shithole bar in your town where it’s all methheads and bikers and generally terrible people.
You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the Facts of Life. The Facts of Life.
Signtist@bookwyr.me 2 days ago
Oh, yeah, I don't necessarily think that every toxic site was specifically designed to be toxic, most were just designed in a way that people are drawn to. But when enough people flock to a place, it becomes toxic eventually. That just happens to coincide with the fact that when someone becomes wealthy from their website taking off, they often become corrupted by the attention and become the big figureheads we hate. They were probably assholes before, but now they're rich entitled assholes, which is much worse.
In the end the biggest issue with the internet is that too many people becoming easily connected to one another must also include toxic people easily connecting with one another, spreading the toxicity until it's inescapable in the community. I think we could slowly overcome the issues associated with connectivity on our own in time, and we were for a while, but the internet opened the floodgates and gave us too much connection before we were able to handle it.
My own mom went from a staunch democrat to believing Trump was literally the second coming of Jesus Christ sent to deal with actual honest-to-goodness Lizard People running the government, all because some small community of 100-odd people she found on the internet said so, and that many people can't be wrong.
hansolo@lemmy.today 2 days ago
OOOhh - which community? Not going after your mom, I just love a good conspiracy community. Most forums seem pretty insular, so it’s always nice to get a lead on a new one.
Signtist@bookwyr.me 2 days ago
The one she talked about all the time was called the Minnesota Assembly. I think it's an offshoot of the whole sovereign citizen thing. I believe they used a telegram group chat as their main way of communicating. She died a little over a year ago, after they convinced her to treat her breast cancer with the herbal teas they sold instead of going to a doctor, so I'm not sure what's going on with the group anymore.