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You can't trust the internet anymore

nicole.express

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Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#31

Post by willturman »

cortesoft wrote: post #28
WD-42 wrote: post #16

This is why my friends and I are setting up a mesh network in our town. The open internet has been going downhill for a while, but LLMs are absolutely accelerating it's demise. I was in denial for the last few years but at this point I've accepted that the internet I grew up on as a kid in the late 90s to mid 2000s is dead. I am grateful for having experienced it but the time has come to move on. The future for peopl…

This seems like solving the problem at the wrong layer? The issue isn’t the actual network connection between people, it is the content. You could easily create your own forum or something and only include people you trust. You don’t need an entirely separate internet.

Perhaps, but it also, by default, excludes that entire class of authentication problems that are only manifested in a non-local network.

I love the idea.

It's also interesting in that a local mesh doesn't necessarily need to operate using the TCP/IP/HTTP stack that has been compromised at every layer by advertising and privacy intrusions.

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#32

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

I was recently running into this while playing the latest Hollow Knight game. Several sloppified sites which obviously were trying to tailor mechanics/items of the original game into the new one. The new release is only ~six months old, so there is just not that much hard content available to reference.

My question is -why? Is it really worth the ad revenue to trick a few people looking into a few niche topics? Say you pick the top 5000 trending movies/music/games and generate fake content covering the gamut. What is the payback period?

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#33

Post by yellowapple »

nicole_express wrote: post #10
throwaway2027 wrote: post #7

"You really think someone would do that? Just go on the Internet and tell lies?" https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/just-go-on-the-internet-and-t...

A big part of my annoyance is that in the past, something like Phantasy Star Fukkokuban would not really be worth lying about; people need a reason to lie.

There was no reason to lie about knowing the Scots language well enough to be the primary contributor by volume to Scots Wikipedia, and yet that's something that happened.

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#34

Post by pdonis »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #23
ninjagoo wrote: post #3

The internet has gone from a high-trust society to a low-trust society, all in the span of a couple of decades. Enshittification strikes again. And it doesn't have appear to have any means to rid itself of the bad apples. A sad situation all around.

to be boring, the term "enshittification" was invented by one individual, recently, and has a specific meaning. it does not refer to "things just get worse" but describes a specific strategy adopted by corporations using the internet for commercial purposes.

> a specific strategy adopted by corporations using the internet for commercial purposes.

Isn't that what's driving the pollution of the Internet by LLMs?

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#35

Post by underlipton »

It comes down to Google's failure. Rather than outright defeating the SEO eldridge abomination by adopting a zero-tolerance policy to those tactics, Google made a mutually advantageous bargain with them of - course, leaving out a third party: us. They could do this because they had no competition. Now, the culture of enabling bad actors is, unfortunately, set.

Google did all the innovation it needed to and ever is going to. It needed to be broken up a decade ago. We can still do it now. Though I don't know how much it will save, especially if we don't also go after Apple, and Meta, and Microsoft.

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#36

Post by pdonis »

yellowapple wrote: post #33
nicole_express wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big part of my annoyance is that in the past, something like Phantasy Star Fukkokuban would not really be worth lying about; people need a reason to lie.

There was no reason to lie about knowing the Scots language well enough to be the primary contributor by volume to Scots Wikipedia, and yet that's something that happened.

> There was no reason to lie about knowing the Scots language well enough to be the primary contributor by volume to Scots Wikipedia

Yes, there was: becoming the primary contributor by volume to Scots Wikipedia (which probably doesn't have many contributors to begin with, but there you are). Some people just have to have attention, no matter how.

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#37

Post by neom »

I thought a lot last night about how we could protect HN, I didn't come up with a good answer except maybe you'll need to have someone with a higher reputation vouch aka invites. My internet community journey has mostly just been irc -> dA -> twitter -> HN. Too frequently these days I feel I might be putting emotional energy into something that isn't human on this site, hard to express how that makes me feel, but it's not pleasant at all. 힝

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#38

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #6

Tangentially related, I have a hunch, but cannot prove, that prediction markets are the driving force behind a lot of the bad information online, since they essentially monetarily incentivize making people misjudge the state of the world. There's been a huge uptick in this sort of brigade like behavior around current events. First noted it around LK99, that failed room temperature semiconductor in 2023, but it just k…

That seems really high effort. I assume most events are things which are hard to influence, so at best you are hoping to tilt the wager odds into your favor. Which could backfire if you are betting on the wrong outcome.

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#39

Post by purpleKiwi »

xantronix wrote: post #19
WD-42 wrote: post #16

This is why my friends and I are setting up a mesh network in our town. The open internet has been going downhill for a while, but LLMs are absolutely accelerating it's demise. I was in denial for the last few years but at this point I've accepted that the internet I grew up on as a kid in the late 90s to mid 2000s is dead. I am grateful for having experienced it but the time has come to move on. The future for peopl…

I've been looking into building some sort of Wireguard mesh service since many of my friends are distributed all across the world. I wish you the very best in your endeavours!

How would that look like in practice? I've just heard about the term and I like the description of it, especially the possibilities it gives

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#40

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #27
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I "got online" in 1985. I don't recall a single point in time that a geographically local internet was ever useful or of interest to me.

What about when you want to find hot singles in your area? Jokes aside, probably 10-20% of my browsing is related to local things, up to the country scale. From finding local restaurants or businesses, to finding about relevant laws or regulations, news, etc. That's not negligible.

Fair point, but those information sources and those things were not connected to a local internet.
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