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At some point personal responsibility has to come into play, right? I certainly don't want everything curated for me by someone else before it hits my senses.

by lolsal 5y ago

adamrezich 5y ago
I believe this is a shift in mentality that has occurred ever since smartphones and social media became ubiquitous. before that, in the early-to-mid 00s and earlier, it was assumed that the Web would contain tons of disinformation—possibly moreso than actual information—because anyone could make a website and put whatever they wanted on it, and this was well-understood and acknowledged by basically everyone who used the Web at this time. then smartphones happened and suddenly everyone was on the Web, and social media happened, shunting all these new Web users into walled-garden information silos. thus, it makes sense that these people who mostly began using the Web in earnest in this social media age would expect, nay demand ultra-locked-down content-controlled ideological safe spaces. of course, then, these massive social media corporations are more than happy to acquiesce to these implicit demands, because they can then tout their ultra-locked-down ideological echo-chambers as being a feature of their service compared to the others—don't worry, you won't see anything untoward here, on our service! this cultural shift in attitude toward the Web was probably inevitable and we probably won't ever go back to the way things were before, which is unfortunate, but here we are.
- xyzzy21 5y ago
  Maturation to adulthood of Millennials and GenZ. Generations who were helicoptered and snowplowed out of knowledge of "how the real world works" especially in terms of how messy and uncontrolled it is. If you are used to authority figures micromanaging your life, you will come to expect that as an adult. You will also be deemed insufferable to everyone else who understands reality.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Scale matters. The early Internet was elitist and small. It had a fairly strong influence on those it reached but that was a small group. Influential, to a degree. And even in the very earliest days there was both resistance and propaganda online. One of the earliest books I have addressing this is John S. Waterman's The Matrix, published in 1990, about the then-extant "conferencing systems" worldwide. Its forward mentions what was a then-breaking develoopment: the 4 June 1989 Tienanmen Square protests and massacre, and the consequent flood of messages via fax and telephone by the student protesters. What happened over the course of the aughts and teens is that the Internet achieved mass global reach. The Facebook, YouTube, and Whatsap logos are probably the most-widely reproduced symbols on the planet, each having 2 billion or more active users. Mobile internet means that this contact is continuous throughout the day and limited to highly-emotive content. And now the misinformation and disinformation is mainstream. State-level actors --- Russia and China, yes, but also India, Israel, the US, and others --- are engaged in propaganda of various forms. Commercial interests do so through advertising and influencers. Politics are now online not merely in California and the US, but globally. The bottleneck isn't the network, it's the public's ability to perceive and sort through the bullshit and manipulation, much of which is exceedingly adept. Media changes societies. It always has, going back to speech. And the changes we're living through now will have profound and long-lived consequences.
grapist420 5y ago
Yeah. But Reddit already censors the shit out of its communities, both with thousands unnecessary subreddit bans and a comically incompetent “Anti-Evil Operations” site wide censorship team staffed by barely literate Zambians or something that randomly removes benign comments and suspends people for ridiculous reasons.
rat87 5y ago
Yes when will Reddit admit take responsibility and ban antivax subreddits?
- lolsal 5y ago
  Why does reddit have that responsibility?

At some point personal responsibility has to come into play, right? I certainly don't want everything curated for me by someone else before it hits my senses.

by lolsal 5y ago

At some point personal responsibility has to come into play, right? I certainly don't want everything curated for me by someone else before it hits my senses.

adamrezich 5y ago

I believe this is a shift in mentality that has occurred ever since smartphones and social media became ubiquitous. before that, in the early-to-mid 00s and earlier, it was assumed that the Web would contain tons of disinformation—possibly moreso than actual information—because anyone could make a website and put whatever they wanted on it, and this was well-understood and acknowledged by basically everyone who used the Web at this time. then smartphones happened and suddenly everyone was on the Web, and social media happened, shunting all these new Web users into walled-garden information silos. thus, it makes sense that these people who mostly began using the Web in earnest in this social media age would expect, nay demand ultra-locked-down content-controlled ideological safe spaces. of course, then, these massive social media corporations are more than happy to acquiesce to these implicit demands, because they can then tout their ultra-locked-down ideological echo-chambers as being a feature of their service compared to the others—don't worry, you won't see anything untoward here, on our service! this cultural shift in attitude toward the Web was probably inevitable and we probably won't ever go back to the way things were before, which is unfortunate, but here we are.

xyzzy21 5y ago
Maturation to adulthood of Millennials and GenZ. Generations who were helicoptered and snowplowed out of knowledge of "how the real world works" especially in terms of how messy and uncontrolled it is. If you are used to authority figures micromanaging your life, you will come to expect that as an adult. You will also be deemed insufferable to everyone else who understands reality.
dredmorbius 5y ago
Scale matters. The early Internet was elitist and small. It had a fairly strong influence on those it reached but that was a small group. Influential, to a degree. And even in the very earliest days there was both resistance and propaganda online. One of the earliest books I have addressing this is John S. Waterman's The Matrix, published in 1990, about the then-extant "conferencing systems" worldwide. Its forward mentions what was a then-breaking develoopment: the 4 June 1989 Tienanmen Square protests and massacre, and the consequent flood of messages via fax and telephone by the student protesters. What happened over the course of the aughts and teens is that the Internet achieved mass global reach. The Facebook, YouTube, and Whatsap logos are probably the most-widely reproduced symbols on the planet, each having 2 billion or more active users. Mobile internet means that this contact is continuous throughout the day and limited to highly-emotive content. And now the misinformation and disinformation is mainstream. State-level actors --- Russia and China, yes, but also India, Israel, the US, and others --- are engaged in propaganda of various forms. Commercial interests do so through advertising and influencers. Politics are now online not merely in California and the US, but globally. The bottleneck isn't the network, it's the public's ability to perceive and sort through the bullshit and manipulation, much of which is exceedingly adept. Media changes societies. It always has, going back to speech. And the changes we're living through now will have profound and long-lived consequences.

grapist420 5y ago

Yeah. But Reddit already censors the shit out of its communities, both with thousands unnecessary subreddit bans and a comically incompetent “Anti-Evil Operations” site wide censorship team staffed by barely literate Zambians or something that randomly removes benign comments and suspends people for ridiculous reasons.

rat87 5y ago

Yes when will Reddit admit take responsibility and ban antivax subreddits?

lolsal 5y ago
Why does reddit have that responsibility?