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I'm turning 41, but I don't feel like celebrating

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Re: I'm turning 41, but I don't feel like celebrating

#21

Post by [deleted] »

tpm wrote: post #12
SilverElfin wrote: post #3

This is Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram. And he’s totally correct. The Internet was much better before the 2000s and the social media era. And when the people who remember it aren’t around, those remaining won’t have any idea that they’re missing something. He’s also totally correct in calling out the obvious lunge towards authoritarianism from European democracies - this must be stopped immediately: > Once-free…

Yet he is also one of the riders of apocalypse. Techbros who only applied rules that suited them and abused everything else. It's one thing if we had some mythical true freedom fighters, or guys from Signal, against The State, but if it's people like him, Zuckerberg etc. then it gets much harder to defend anything they do. It is important to understand that 'the lunge towards authoritarianism' is directly caused by t…

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Re: I'm turning 41, but I don't feel like celebrating

#22

Post by twixfel »

SilverElfin wrote: post #3

This is Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram. And he’s totally correct. The Internet was much better before the 2000s and the social media era. And when the people who remember it aren’t around, those remaining won’t have any idea that they’re missing something. He’s also totally correct in calling out the obvious lunge towards authoritarianism from European democracies - this must be stopped immediately: > Once-free…

Germany has always had strange (bad) laws about insulting people. It's literally nothing to do with the internet. You are betraying your ignorance by saying they "must be stopped"—they've been around since the country was founded.

Re: I'm turning 41, but I don't feel like celebrating

#23

Post by anigbrowl »

phs318u wrote: post #11
SilverElfin wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anonymity enabled the troll culture Anonymity enabled honesty and free expression. FTFY.

I'm old enough to remember the internet before the WWW and yes, anonymity enabled the troll culture (among other things). Honesty and free expression didn't require anonymity because people weren't being constantly monitored or having their every pronouncement judged (by the mostly anonymous). Yes, there were lots of flame-wars, but folks by and large had the gumption to hold their name to their positions. * I may be…

Anonymity was important back then to, and I was a strident defender of anon.penet.fi (look this up if you're not familiar). The problem is that what worked well as an option with a degree of persistence created its own set of problems when industrialized. We are not imho better off with fully anonymous swarms or the increasingly default situation of website ownership being hidden from the public, both of which have enabled the automation of abuse, misinformation, slop content and so on. Over the last 30-40 years internet communication/communities have gone from relatively high trust and levels of user participation/democracy toward zero trust and an extremely bimodal power distribution which has produced an excess of toxicity and adversarial behavior. I blame hacking/phreaking culture to a certain extent, because openness and information exchange valorized in that culture are also accompanies with a lot of drama and personal backbiting.

Re: I'm turning 41, but I don't feel like celebrating

#25

Post by jrflowers »

ljf wrote: post #14
jrflowers wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anonymity enabled the troll culture You will be blown away by stuff people post at eachother on facebook, the site where you use your real name

Consider; a. Not all people using Facebook are using their real name, and b. Not all Facebook accounts are real people

You have a good point. Some people have anonymous accounts on facebook and that means that my old neighbor did not publicly surprise her husband by announcing that she was polyamorous in a status update

Re: I'm turning 41, but I don't feel like celebrating

#26

Post by realusername »

Aeolun wrote: post #17
graeme wrote: post #16

It should be noted that Durov does not criticize Russia, his country of citizenship and the center of much of his userbase. The Russian internet is far more controlled than the Western internet, with penalties up to and including arrest and death for expressing the wrong views. Russia also is actively invading Europe and sponsoring vast network of troll accounts which poison the discourse on the internet in Western c…

> That cynicism is one the explicit goals of Russian propaganda. I don’t need Russia to tell me to be cynical of the western political situation.

Well, apparently Russia needs it, I received at least 3 propaganda messages from him globally sent on Telegram.

Re: I'm turning 41, but I don't feel like celebrating

#27

Post by yatsyk »

I share Durov’s disappointment about where the internet is heading.

But I think it’s hypocritical to talk about freedom of speech issues in Western Europe while ignoring similar or worse restrictions in China, Russia, or Dubai, where he lives.

It’s similar to Musk’s approach — when Twitter is shut down in Brazil, it’s a freedom of speech violation, but having a Tesla factory in China suddenly makes that problem disappear there.

Re: I'm turning 41, but I don't feel like celebrating

#28

Post by kgeist »

yatsyk wrote: post #27

I share Durov’s disappointment about where the internet is heading. But I think it’s hypocritical to talk about freedom of speech issues in Western Europe while ignoring similar or worse restrictions in China, Russia, or Dubai, where he lives. It’s similar to Musk’s approach — when Twitter is shut down in Brazil, it’s a freedom of speech violation, but having a Tesla factory in China suddenly makes that problem disap…

Well, Russia has basically never had freedom of speech, except for a brief period in the 1990s, so it contributes nothing to his thesis in the tweet that "once-free countries are introducing dystopian measures."

Re: I'm turning 41, but I don't feel like celebrating

#29

Post by nialse »

jrflowers wrote: post #7
nialse wrote: post #2

Common misunderstandings are that there was no control over the internet and that anonymity was for protecting freedom of expression of the individuals. The difference is that what once was covert in the West is now out in the open. Anonymity enabled the troll culture, famously exploited by any and all bad faith actors in their favor. Control in terms of surveillance on metadata level is just a manner of having enoug…

> Anonymity enabled the troll culture You will be blown away by stuff people post at eachother on facebook, the site where you use your real name

Real names? I have an old novelty account (not used) which still sends me updates via email from the family of the same name as the ready made meals company I was making fun of.

At the same time you are completely right! Troll culture has enabled an era of unhinged communication. Many people have lost the little decency they had. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not immune to it.

Re: I'm turning 41, but I don't feel like celebrating

#30

Post by bfg_9k »

nialse wrote: post #2

Common misunderstandings are that there was no control over the internet and that anonymity was for protecting freedom of expression of the individuals. The difference is that what once was covert in the West is now out in the open. Anonymity enabled the troll culture, famously exploited by any and all bad faith actors in their favor. Control in terms of surveillance on metadata level is just a manner of having enoug…

> Anonymity enabled the troll culture

And so what if it did? That's the price we collectively pay for a free internet.

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