7 ms·

TIL FTP took down AOL. Did a human actually write that? Wow. AOL died because it was a walled garden filled with manure and very few actual plants.

cratermoon 5y ago
> a walled garden filled with manure and very few actual plants. Sounds like Facebook in 2021.
- MBCook 5y ago
  Honestly it was Disneyland compared to FB. Because it was a paid service they tried to keep it clean and nice. It never would have hosted the kind of anti-vax-blow-up-the-government stuff and promoted it as prime content like FB.
  - OzzyB 5y ago
    What you really mean is that it was US centric and wasn't spammed to death by bot networks and state-backed actors that want to sow division. The fact that you had to get the disk and pay with a credit card created one of the best online user experiences we had.
    - jack_pp 5y ago
      That wouldn't stop state backed actors today but I agree with the first paragraph
    - rightbyte 5y ago
      The Internet Boogeyman from Russia and China is a fairy tale to scare kids you know. Wildly exaggerated threat. Bot farms is an ads problem. The feed algorithm that maximize for 'engagement', in the same sense a traffic jam does, is the main culprit. Using Facebook, Instagram now gives you no power over what you see, just faint wishes that Zuckerberg somewhat fulfills every 4th post.
      - stjohnswarts 5y ago
        You're wrong. I've checked out many facebook propaganda sources and they are all laughingly obvious that they are state actors OR US internal sources that Facebook could quickly remove with minimal fuss. Yes the English was terrible and the propaganda horribly obvious (yet dumbasses on FB still buy into it or feed the troll). Anyway, FB doesn't want to remove them unless they pop up in mainstream media, otherwise they are very safe because they drive up viewership and commenting and the Zuck loves that.
        rightbyte 5y ago
        Sure, I don't mean it doesn't exist, but that it is just not that impactfull compared to domestic lunatics. I agree FB is very bad at removing syntetic 'content farm' content.
  - RJSquirel 5y ago
    >Honestly it was Disneyland compared to FB. Except for the "Eternal September" part of the park.
    - BizarroLand 5y ago
      There will always be an Eternal September in any mass communications system that is open to the public. Disneyland has been operating for 70 something years and there are still thousands if not millions of first timers arriving every year.
      - cratermoon 5y ago
        Yes but Disneyland has refined its crowd control and experience to fine point. You don't see the chaos and mess because Disney spends a lot of money (and has lots of people working the parks) to contain and direct it. Even something as simple and common as a guest getting sick on a ride, Disney has a response team to handle it and keep the "Happiest Place on Earth" image alive. Try that kind of curation and moderation in an online forum for people that size and within a week you'd have the right wing yelling about "cancel culture" and GOP senators calling hearings on Big Tech censors.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
      The September That Never Ended was Bad. It resulted in the Web suddenly becoming open, and full of ill-informed opinions, and populated by large crowds of ignorant, obnoxious, know-nothing users, wearing cargo shorts, Hawai'ian shirts, and socks and sandals, wandering around, pawing all the exhibits. The September That Never Ended was Good. That's when the real money started to hit the Internet. All those Teslas that average-level programmers are driving around, these days, are because of all those "tourists," and their loud shirts.
      - selfhoster11 5y ago
        > All those Teslas that average-level programmers are driving around, these days, are because of all those "tourists," and their loud shirts. I am average programmer, but not SV. I still haven't been paid well enough to buy a Tesla.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    There was plenty of that nonsense back in the day, too. And plenty of novice users who just cared about owning the "libs", or making fun of Bush. We were just a lot better about putting this stuff in the right perspective.
  - narrator 5y ago
    The censorship didn't get going anywhere for the most part until about 2016. Before that, the internet was not considered a serious enough information channel compared to mainstream media to impose much censorship on. After the Trump election, the mainstream woke up, freaked out, and the screws got tightened everywhere.
    - sammalloy 5y ago
      The theory is that Dugin's strategies (outlined in "Foundations of Geopolitics") were widely implemented in the US in 2015-2016 in an attempt to destabilize the west. Wikipedia: > The book emphasizes that Russia must spread anti-Americanism everywhere: "the main 'scapegoat' will be precisely the U.S...Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics". Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms became publishing platforms for active measures (propaganda and disinformation) campaigns to promote Russian-style authoritarianism and diminish the influence of western democracy. Once these platforms were given this evidence (widely published and released online by the platforms themselves), they took some steps to stop it. Notable examples include populist movements such as the Trump campaign, state secession movements, white separatist movements, and more recently anti-vax movements. There are many more. Facebook in particular has failed to stop the spread, and the site is widely considered by most outside experts as "captured" by foreign assets. This is especially true when it comes to QAnon and anti-vax content, which appears to be promulgated to harm western institutions.
      - tehjoker 5y ago
        It's insane that there are still people that think our own countrymen aren't crazy enough to do this to themselves and blame a foreign power (that conveniently is an official enemy).
  - Alex3917 5y ago
    > It never would have hosted the kind of anti-vax-blow-up-the-government stuff and promoted it as prime content like FB. The most popular content on the service was astrology horoscopes.
    - cratermoon 5y ago
      Which, while stupid, didn't have the effect of blowing up the government or infecting other people. Ask any newspaper of the era what their most popular section is and you'll find the same thing. "Horoscopes"
  - discardable_dan 5y ago
    Every platform nowadays suffers from this. Reddit's admins recently posted saying they intended to continue allowing anti-vaxx content. To quote the admins themselves [1]: "we believe it is best to enable communities to engage in debate and dissent." YouTube is the other cornerstone of the anti-vaxx movement, hosting and (quite sinisterly) automatically recommending countless videos on the topic (see Plandemic). 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/pbmy5y/debate_dissent_and_protest_on_reddit/ https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/pbmy5y/debat...
    - cratermoon 5y ago
      Well, yes. That's because it drives engagement, sells ads, and makes money. As long as they social media companies can keep the "both sides" field open they can occupy that space for profit as long as they want, without regard to morality or ethics.
- hellbannedguy 5y ago
  As much as I despise FB, the Pages, and Groups, are great. I do think Nextdoor will give FB competition though. If they don't buy it up? (I despise Nextdoor. To me it's just people complaining about their neighborhood. Will never understand the guy who sits home, and complains about the car parked on the street, or who's dog deficated on their lawn. That said, I hear strangers taking about the site, and asking for invites. It's privately owned now, but will make a few people billionaires soon.)
  - spideymans 5y ago
    I would love to read into the psychology of these people. You know, the busybody, snitchy neighbour type. The type that scrutinizes a neighbours home improvements for the most trivial of infractions (we don't allow this colour of flower in this HOA!), or who threatens to report people for banal things that aren't even illegal (gasp... someone legally parked on the publicly owned street).
    - cratermoon 5y ago
      There's something called other-directed perfectionism that could be at work. Someone who can't stand to see imperfections around them or tolerate the fact the humans are just imperfect.
- hopesthoughts 5y ago
  Or 2020, or 2019. Wait, that sounds like Facebook since it's creation.
CyberDildonics 5y ago
It's the type of myopic perspective that I would expect from a comment here instead.

cratermoon 5y ago

> a walled garden filled with manure and very few actual plants. Sounds like Facebook in 2021.

MBCook 5y ago
Honestly it was Disneyland compared to FB. Because it was a paid service they tried to keep it clean and nice. It never would have hosted the kind of anti-vax-blow-up-the-government stuff and promoted it as prime content like FB.
- OzzyB 5y ago
  What you really mean is that it was US centric and wasn't spammed to death by bot networks and state-backed actors that want to sow division. The fact that you had to get the disk and pay with a credit card created one of the best online user experiences we had.
  - jack_pp 5y ago
    That wouldn't stop state backed actors today but I agree with the first paragraph
  - rightbyte 5y ago
    The Internet Boogeyman from Russia and China is a fairy tale to scare kids you know. Wildly exaggerated threat. Bot farms is an ads problem. The feed algorithm that maximize for 'engagement', in the same sense a traffic jam does, is the main culprit. Using Facebook, Instagram now gives you no power over what you see, just faint wishes that Zuckerberg somewhat fulfills every 4th post.
    - stjohnswarts 5y ago
      You're wrong. I've checked out many facebook propaganda sources and they are all laughingly obvious that they are state actors OR US internal sources that Facebook could quickly remove with minimal fuss. Yes the English was terrible and the propaganda horribly obvious (yet dumbasses on FB still buy into it or feed the troll). Anyway, FB doesn't want to remove them unless they pop up in mainstream media, otherwise they are very safe because they drive up viewership and commenting and the Zuck loves that.
      - rightbyte 5y ago
        Sure, I don't mean it doesn't exist, but that it is just not that impactfull compared to domestic lunatics. I agree FB is very bad at removing syntetic 'content farm' content.
- RJSquirel 5y ago
  >Honestly it was Disneyland compared to FB. Except for the "Eternal September" part of the park.
  - BizarroLand 5y ago
    There will always be an Eternal September in any mass communications system that is open to the public. Disneyland has been operating for 70 something years and there are still thousands if not millions of first timers arriving every year.
    - cratermoon 5y ago
      Yes but Disneyland has refined its crowd control and experience to fine point. You don't see the chaos and mess because Disney spends a lot of money (and has lots of people working the parks) to contain and direct it. Even something as simple and common as a guest getting sick on a ride, Disney has a response team to handle it and keep the "Happiest Place on Earth" image alive. Try that kind of curation and moderation in an online forum for people that size and within a week you'd have the right wing yelling about "cancel culture" and GOP senators calling hearings on Big Tech censors.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    The September That Never Ended was Bad. It resulted in the Web suddenly becoming open, and full of ill-informed opinions, and populated by large crowds of ignorant, obnoxious, know-nothing users, wearing cargo shorts, Hawai'ian shirts, and socks and sandals, wandering around, pawing all the exhibits. The September That Never Ended was Good. That's when the real money started to hit the Internet. All those Teslas that average-level programmers are driving around, these days, are because of all those "tourists," and their loud shirts.
    - selfhoster11 5y ago
      > All those Teslas that average-level programmers are driving around, these days, are because of all those "tourists," and their loud shirts. I am average programmer, but not SV. I still haven't been paid well enough to buy a Tesla.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  There was plenty of that nonsense back in the day, too. And plenty of novice users who just cared about owning the "libs", or making fun of Bush. We were just a lot better about putting this stuff in the right perspective.
- narrator 5y ago
  The censorship didn't get going anywhere for the most part until about 2016. Before that, the internet was not considered a serious enough information channel compared to mainstream media to impose much censorship on. After the Trump election, the mainstream woke up, freaked out, and the screws got tightened everywhere.
  - sammalloy 5y ago
    The theory is that Dugin's strategies (outlined in "Foundations of Geopolitics") were widely implemented in the US in 2015-2016 in an attempt to destabilize the west. Wikipedia: > The book emphasizes that Russia must spread anti-Americanism everywhere: "the main 'scapegoat' will be precisely the U.S...Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics". Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms became publishing platforms for active measures (propaganda and disinformation) campaigns to promote Russian-style authoritarianism and diminish the influence of western democracy. Once these platforms were given this evidence (widely published and released online by the platforms themselves), they took some steps to stop it. Notable examples include populist movements such as the Trump campaign, state secession movements, white separatist movements, and more recently anti-vax movements. There are many more. Facebook in particular has failed to stop the spread, and the site is widely considered by most outside experts as "captured" by foreign assets. This is especially true when it comes to QAnon and anti-vax content, which appears to be promulgated to harm western institutions.
    - tehjoker 5y ago
      It's insane that there are still people that think our own countrymen aren't crazy enough to do this to themselves and blame a foreign power (that conveniently is an official enemy).
- Alex3917 5y ago
  > It never would have hosted the kind of anti-vax-blow-up-the-government stuff and promoted it as prime content like FB. The most popular content on the service was astrology horoscopes.
  - cratermoon 5y ago
    Which, while stupid, didn't have the effect of blowing up the government or infecting other people. Ask any newspaper of the era what their most popular section is and you'll find the same thing. "Horoscopes"
- discardable_dan 5y ago
  Every platform nowadays suffers from this. Reddit's admins recently posted saying they intended to continue allowing anti-vaxx content. To quote the admins themselves [1]: "we believe it is best to enable communities to engage in debate and dissent." YouTube is the other cornerstone of the anti-vaxx movement, hosting and (quite sinisterly) automatically recommending countless videos on the topic (see Plandemic). 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/pbmy5y/debate_dissent_and_protest_on_reddit/ https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/pbmy5y/debat...
  - cratermoon 5y ago
    Well, yes. That's because it drives engagement, sells ads, and makes money. As long as they social media companies can keep the "both sides" field open they can occupy that space for profit as long as they want, without regard to morality or ethics.
hellbannedguy 5y ago
As much as I despise FB, the Pages, and Groups, are great. I do think Nextdoor will give FB competition though. If they don't buy it up? (I despise Nextdoor. To me it's just people complaining about their neighborhood. Will never understand the guy who sits home, and complains about the car parked on the street, or who's dog deficated on their lawn. That said, I hear strangers taking about the site, and asking for invites. It's privately owned now, but will make a few people billionaires soon.)
- spideymans 5y ago
  I would love to read into the psychology of these people. You know, the busybody, snitchy neighbour type. The type that scrutinizes a neighbours home improvements for the most trivial of infractions (we don't allow this colour of flower in this HOA!), or who threatens to report people for banal things that aren't even illegal (gasp... someone legally parked on the publicly owned street).
  - cratermoon 5y ago
    There's something called other-directed perfectionism that could be at work. Someone who can't stand to see imperfections around them or tolerate the fact the humans are just imperfect.
hopesthoughts 5y ago
Or 2020, or 2019. Wait, that sounds like Facebook since it's creation.

CyberDildonics 5y ago

It's the type of myopic perspective that I would expect from a comment here instead.