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The internet used to be so wild, dangerous, unpredictable. At some point, it was defanged. Now everything is safe, sanitized, and governed. Everything has to be

The internet used to be so wild, dangerous, unpredictable. At some point, it was defanged. Now everything is safe, sanitized, and governed. Everything has to be nice and inoffensive. Gone are the days when you might stumble across an ISIS beheading video on youtube. Even places like 4chan are heavily moderated now. As a source of information, the internet has decayed significantly too. Specialized knowledge seems to have moved from phpBB forums into private discords, which cannot be searched, indexed, or archived. Everything has become centralized. Remember when games (quake, csgo, minecraft, etc) gave you the server executable so you could run your own server under your control? That seems to have completely disappeared in the past ~5 years or so. And discord misleadingly calls chatrooms "servers" when in reality it's all one centralized mainframe. Websites now subvert the basic function of a computer as a tool for storing and manipulating bytes. To save a video on reddit I have to leave a comment with the name of a bot. To save a video on twitter I have to install a browser extension or use a third-party website. It just feels like the whole computing world is rotting and I don't know what to do about it. There's nowhere to go, unless you want to live in the past.

TranquilMarmot 5y ago
I blame Apple for a lot of this. When the iPhone got big, they kept it all closed off in a walled garden- you couldn't/still can't even look at the files on disk! Other businesses saw how locked down you could make something and still be successful and replicated it. Why let you easily download a video if that lets you post it elsewhere? They want to keep you on Reddit/Twitter for longer and longer so that they get more engagement from you and can show you ads. Minecraft is a great example of this, too. Why let you run your own server for you and your friends when you can pay Microsoft to host the server for you on their centralized server? Never mind that sometimes the data center gets too much traffic and your little server gets deprioritized and your ping skyrockets.
_fat_santa 5y ago
I think this is just a function of the internet expanding in functionality. Back when the internet was wild, dangerous and unpredictable, the internet itself was pretty small and insignificant. Now the internet has become the backbone, and for it to become a backbone it has to be safe and sanitized. Now if you want to find the wild, dangerous and unpredictable, you have to look to various parts of the internet. For all the hate that Web3 gets, it's really the new wild west of the internet, just like the internet itself was back when it first came out. Eventually Web3 will be tamped down by regulations and corporations and become a safe and sanitized place just like the rest of the "mainstream" internet. But for now I really cherish just how nuts that whole space is.
mlac 5y ago
> Gone are the days when you might stumble across an ISIS beheading video on youtube. Good? Do you want kids to accidentally watch one of those videos?
- shrimp_emoji 5y ago
  No! Make sure no kids ever see anything bad. Incidentally, since the Internet can't truly age gate, this means no adults will either. People in third world countries who want to show the rest of the world what's happening around them will have to be up to speed on what the right-wing conspiracist backwater of the week happens to be, since that's the place where any and all advertiser-unfriendly content will be concentrated. (Yay.)
- voldacar 5y ago
  I would rather that than the internet be sanitized and homogenized, yes.
- muzani 5y ago
  ISIS beheadings highlight a part of the world that many don't know. I was in school when 9/11 happened, and there was this shock everywhere. People were thinking "Why is the world so evil?" Or some variation of "Why is Islam/Arabs so evil?" We spent years debating this kind of thing, on forums, poking at Islam, Arabs, US middle eastern policy, Israel, and so on. Some reach the wrong conclusion, but many come out of that understanding the world much better. It also highlights different worldviews. My aunt told me people would do anything for money, but it was clear money wasn't the case here. Something ran much deeper than money and power. I think the beheading videos give us a better sense of reality than say, Facebook or Twitter. I'd much rather my kids watch gore somewhere rather than read through politics on social media. There's the initial shock, but it's like the kids slamming the finger on the door. The injury is inevitable, but they learn from it.
- disambiguation 5y ago
  Some day kids become adults. It's not about wanting someone to see something arbitrarily cruel, but about knowing the raw truth about how the world works.
gitgud 5y ago
> Gone are the days when you might stumble across an ISIS beheading video on youtube The way this is worded makes it seem like you miss these videos... Is this really something you personally think is worth keeping on Youtube?
- voldacar 5y ago
  I do not desire to be beheaded. I do not derive pleasure from seeing others be beheaded. However, being beheaded is sometimes a part of the human experience. The world is a place that contains beheadings. It simply is. The internet, in the absence of external manipulation, will tend to contain the whole world within it, including everything dark or unpleasant. I want the internet to be a force for authenticity and disintermediation. I want it to be wild and anarchic and beautiful and dangerous. If that means I see a beheading occasionally, so be it.
  - gitgud 5y ago
    Some good points, though giving a platform for people to upload and view "beheading videos", is implicitly condoning it. Should the the platform condone such things?... To me no they shouldn't condone some things, even if they are true. The dark web is the indescriminant place that you're looking for that contains the dark unaltered truth's of the world...
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    The trouble is any site hosting stuff like that isn’t neutral in these behaviours. There is a strong argument that if the perpetrators didn’t have an audience for the beheadings then they wouldn’t perform them.
approxim8ion 5y ago
I visited the "heavily moderated" 4chan you talk of a few days ago, and came across a post full of hundreds of comments stating "uncivilized ape" people like me should "kill themselves or be prepared for the consequences". When I see people complain about this stuff the most charitable interpretation is that you want this kind of "discourse" to become more acceptable for your consumption or dissemination. And this is far from a fringe opinion on that site.

TranquilMarmot 5y ago

I blame Apple for a lot of this. When the iPhone got big, they kept it all closed off in a walled garden- you couldn't/still can't even look at the files on disk! Other businesses saw how locked down you could make something and still be successful and replicated it. Why let you easily download a video if that lets you post it elsewhere? They want to keep you on Reddit/Twitter for longer and longer so that they get more engagement from you and can show you ads. Minecraft is a great example of this, too. Why let you run your own server for you and your friends when you can pay Microsoft to host the server for you on their centralized server? Never mind that sometimes the data center gets too much traffic and your little server gets deprioritized and your ping skyrockets.

_fat_santa 5y ago

I think this is just a function of the internet expanding in functionality. Back when the internet was wild, dangerous and unpredictable, the internet itself was pretty small and insignificant. Now the internet has become the backbone, and for it to become a backbone it has to be safe and sanitized. Now if you want to find the wild, dangerous and unpredictable, you have to look to various parts of the internet. For all the hate that Web3 gets, it's really the new wild west of the internet, just like the internet itself was back when it first came out. Eventually Web3 will be tamped down by regulations and corporations and become a safe and sanitized place just like the rest of the "mainstream" internet. But for now I really cherish just how nuts that whole space is.

mlac 5y ago

> Gone are the days when you might stumble across an ISIS beheading video on youtube. Good? Do you want kids to accidentally watch one of those videos?

shrimp_emoji 5y ago
No! Make sure no kids ever see anything bad. Incidentally, since the Internet can't truly age gate, this means no adults will either. People in third world countries who want to show the rest of the world what's happening around them will have to be up to speed on what the right-wing conspiracist backwater of the week happens to be, since that's the place where any and all advertiser-unfriendly content will be concentrated. (Yay.)
voldacar 5y ago
I would rather that than the internet be sanitized and homogenized, yes.
muzani 5y ago
ISIS beheadings highlight a part of the world that many don't know. I was in school when 9/11 happened, and there was this shock everywhere. People were thinking "Why is the world so evil?" Or some variation of "Why is Islam/Arabs so evil?" We spent years debating this kind of thing, on forums, poking at Islam, Arabs, US middle eastern policy, Israel, and so on. Some reach the wrong conclusion, but many come out of that understanding the world much better. It also highlights different worldviews. My aunt told me people would do anything for money, but it was clear money wasn't the case here. Something ran much deeper than money and power. I think the beheading videos give us a better sense of reality than say, Facebook or Twitter. I'd much rather my kids watch gore somewhere rather than read through politics on social media. There's the initial shock, but it's like the kids slamming the finger on the door. The injury is inevitable, but they learn from it.
disambiguation 5y ago
Some day kids become adults. It's not about wanting someone to see something arbitrarily cruel, but about knowing the raw truth about how the world works.

gitgud 5y ago

> Gone are the days when you might stumble across an ISIS beheading video on youtube The way this is worded makes it seem like you miss these videos... Is this really something you personally think is worth keeping on Youtube?

voldacar 5y ago
I do not desire to be beheaded. I do not derive pleasure from seeing others be beheaded. However, being beheaded is sometimes a part of the human experience. The world is a place that contains beheadings. It simply is. The internet, in the absence of external manipulation, will tend to contain the whole world within it, including everything dark or unpleasant. I want the internet to be a force for authenticity and disintermediation. I want it to be wild and anarchic and beautiful and dangerous. If that means I see a beheading occasionally, so be it.
- gitgud 5y ago
  Some good points, though giving a platform for people to upload and view "beheading videos", is implicitly condoning it. Should the the platform condone such things?... To me no they shouldn't condone some things, even if they are true. The dark web is the indescriminant place that you're looking for that contains the dark unaltered truth's of the world...
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  The trouble is any site hosting stuff like that isn’t neutral in these behaviours. There is a strong argument that if the perpetrators didn’t have an audience for the beheadings then they wouldn’t perform them.

approxim8ion 5y ago

I visited the "heavily moderated" 4chan you talk of a few days ago, and came across a post full of hundreds of comments stating "uncivilized ape" people like me should "kill themselves or be prepared for the consequences". When I see people complain about this stuff the most charitable interpretation is that you want this kind of "discourse" to become more acceptable for your consumption or dissemination. And this is far from a fringe opinion on that site.