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Why the Internet Is Bad for Democracy (2005)
- wussboy 10mo agoI strongly support this message
- polalavik 10mo agoI think a deeper dive on this is The Revolt of the Public by Martin Gurri [1] which argues, in short, that people have been enabled by the internet (which he calls the infosphere) and that mobilization via the internet has created extreme turbulence for systems of authority (which are still needed despite their existing issues). The people enabled by the internet have no way to rule, and in many examples do not wish to rule, but only want to dismantle the status quo without any meaningful replacement or solution leaving everyone in a vacuum of nihilism which is highly corrosive to liberal democracy. [1] https://press.stripe.com/the-revolt-of-the-public https://press.stripe.com/the-revolt-of-the-public
- spencerflem 10mo agoI genuinely don’t get how anyone could feel anything other than nihilism with regards to American democracy
- IlikeKitties 10mo agoI'll add European gerontocracy to that list. Nihilism becomes the obvious and only solution.
- Mountain_Skies 10mo agoYes, it's shocking how common the belief is now that democracy means a person's preferred candidate always wins. Anyone else winning is the death of democracy. The mental gymnastics some people will go through to promote this view can border on mania.
- spencerflem 10mo agoI have zero preferred candidates and likely never will
- brewtide 10mo ago"just because you are offended doesn't mean you are right". It's the modern day way. Perhaps the online filter bubbles over the past... Long while... Have finally shown their long term real world impacts.
- arvid-lind 10mo agoI think it's at least partially because we can't agree on what terms like "democracy" and "fascism" mean anymore, and that doesn't seem like it's going to get any better. Things like diplomacy, bipartisanship, and cooperation can't compete with conflict and aggression in the algorithms. What do we expect will be guiding future generations of voters' opinions and decisions on this kind of stuff?
- AndrewKemendo 10mo agoBut that was always the case for first nations and black Americans. There has literally never been a good time in America for either group.
- spencerflem 10mo agoDon’t think we disagree
- tim333 10mo agoAs someone slightly older I remember when it worked quite well.
- spencerflem 10mo agoWhen the courts stole the election in 2000? The forty years where the only two options were slightly different flavors of Reagan?
- tim333 10mo agoCarter to Bill Clinton seemed ok.
- esyir 10mo agoI'd say that the internet has also strongly lowered the barriers to external propaganda and influence, which is another major factor here. When you've got a huge swarm of "people" with no stake, or even a negative stake in your country, that's a naturally destabilizing factor
- pointbob 10mo ago[dead]
- yunnpp 10mo agoVery good paper, no nonsense and straight to the point(s). These sort of topics need way more visibility and discussion in democracies, especially today.
- barishnamazov 10mo agoThe author missed the mark on the financial barriers to entry. He predicted that the shift from text to broadband/multimedia would make politics "more expensive" and raise entry barriers because video is costly to produce. In reality, the cost of video production dropped to near-zero (smartphones, TikTok, YouTube). However, he was right about the outcome. The "entry barrier" isn't the cost of the camera, it's the cost of the algorithmic optimization and the "strategies to draw attention" in an information glut. The rich didn't win because video is expensive; they won because virality is gameable with resources. Credits where due, he indeed called out this potential for "international manipulation of domestic politics" well before the major scandals of the 2016 era.
- iamnothere 10mo agoThe rich won in America before the Revolution. The Revolution was led by rich men who wanted to set their own tax policy, workhouses and vagrancy laws were used to control the poor in early America, union busting and violent strike breaking began in the late 1800s, inequality has soared since the 70s. The only time you could say that the rich were really on the back foot was from the Great Depression to the end of the gold standard, after which we entered the era of unlimited currency expansion (currency which somehow always finds its way into the pockets of rich men). Media in the 90s was controlled by a handful of companies who consolidated further as soon as the government stopped enforcing rules about concentration. In other words, the present day is just business as usual. I am against this growing notion that the internet is creating a unique situation where the average person is more oppressed than ever. It enables both good and bad things, and yes we really need to pay attention to the bad things. But it’s still a tool that can be used for engagement in the democratic process, for speech, for small scale commerce, and for communication. This needs to be stated because those who oppose the good aspects of the internet are fully prepared to hijack anti-internet sentiment in the name of protecting the public. “Locking down” the internet will do nothing to improve the situation of ordinary people. Quite the opposite in fact.
- rickydroll 10mo agoThe internet discourse is like handing a megaphone to an angry drunk.
- iamnothere 10mo agoIf you read history, this is simply public discourse in general. (Often literally.) If you’re opposed to the difficult and often irrational voices of the public, you’re in fact opposed to democracy.
- petermcneeley 10mo agoWhat about the difficult and often irrational voices of the elite?
- iamnothere 10mo agoI don’t know, what about them?
- intalentive 10mo agoThe text does not really support the title. It argues: “The Internet is not necessarily good for democracy, as optimists claim. It’s more likely to be a mixed bag that presents new challenges.” This is a good early example of the “populism is bad for democracy” genre of Ivy League handwringing, with titles like “The People Vs. Democracy”. It’s almost amusing to see how uncomfortable the ruling class is with peer-to-peer discourse unmediated by Fact Checkers, Debunkers, and other Adults In The Room.
- AuthAuth 10mo agoI'm not the ruling class but im getting uncomfortable with "peer-to-peer discourse unmediated by Fact Checkers, Debunkers, and other Adults In The Room". Have you seen the popular formats of discussion? The are insane even with fact checkers and adults in the room trying to steer the conversation.
- iamnothere 10mo agoThis is the norm throughout history and will continue to be the norm in democracies with free speech. You should read more about partisan papers in the time of yellow journalism, or town hall meetings before the radio era. People are often obnoxious, irrational, absurd, and they may even flat out lie. Shocking! Advocating for this mess to be kept from view is advocating for further obscuring the reality of the situation. I grew up in a time when the TV only presented a polished, curated, “civilized” view of the world. It’s why most Americans didn’t know anything about US interventions in Latin America, about the effects of offshoring and trade liberalization, and about the false justifications for the Iraq War. (Yet even in the late 20th century, conspiracy talk was rampant—it’s not a new phenomenon nor was it created by the internet.)
- tguvot 10mo agoif you had to pick one, do you prefer polished, curated, “civilized” view of the world from that times, or todays onslaught of lies, disinformation and conspiracies ?
- zrn900 10mo agoThis implies that not having internet was good for democracy before that. Internet was not proliferated in 2003 when the Iraq War happened. Was there democracy then... When Vietnam happened, was it democracy...
- c0nstantien 10mo ago[dead]