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PhysicsForums and the Dead Internet Theory

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Re: PhysicsForums and the Dead Internet Theory

#11

Post by UltraSane »

Terr_ wrote: post #3

Ooof. The idea--or reality--that humans' accounts would be hijacked by site-owners to make impersonating slop (presumably to bring in ad-revenue) is somehow both infuriating and energy-sapping-depressing. Issues of trust and attribution have always existed for the web, but for many reasons it feels so much worse now --how bad must it get before some kind of sea-change can occur? I'm not sure what the solution would b…

I exchange public keys with close friends in person. A large scale solution would be very Orwellian. You would need a national ID that is a smart card to connect to an ISP and possible biometric verification.

Re: PhysicsForums and the Dead Internet Theory

#12

Post by EA-3167 »

Terr_ wrote: post #8
EA-3167 wrote: post #5

I don't quite understand the issue of "back-dating" or hijacking accounts. How is this being done exactly? I came away from this article wondering if I was missing something.

> How is this being done exactly? Presumably it's being done by the site-owner, whether that means new-management or original management getting desperate/greedy.

Oh that's so disappointing to hear about PhysicsForums. Thanks for the answer to you, and the others who replied.

Re: PhysicsForums and the Dead Internet Theory

#13

Post by m463 »

Terr_ wrote: post #3

Ooof. The idea--or reality--that humans' accounts would be hijacked by site-owners to make impersonating slop (presumably to bring in ad-revenue) is somehow both infuriating and energy-sapping-depressing. Issues of trust and attribution have always existed for the web, but for many reasons it feels so much worse now --how bad must it get before some kind of sea-change can occur? I'm not sure what the solution would b…

It is sad. I have been putting a copyright notice on my resume at the bottom to prevent some nonsense.

I have always wondered if people could attach some sort of cryptographic marker to their posts, that could link to an archive somewhere. Mostly I was thinking of backups of posts to yelp that couldn't be taken down, but I wonder if it would work that posts someone never made.

Re: PhysicsForums and the Dead Internet Theory

#14

Post by aaron_m04 »

roywiggins wrote: post #9
EA-3167 wrote: post #5

I don't quite understand the issue of "back-dating" or hijacking accounts. How is this being done exactly? I came away from this article wondering if I was missing something.

Whoever runs the site/database is just inserting rows with fake datestamps under existing (presumably abandoned) account names.

How could anyone possibly think it'd be OK to impersonate real humans?

Re: PhysicsForums and the Dead Internet Theory

#15

Post by scotty79 »

Terr_ wrote: post #3

Ooof. The idea--or reality--that humans' accounts would be hijacked by site-owners to make impersonating slop (presumably to bring in ad-revenue) is somehow both infuriating and energy-sapping-depressing. Issues of trust and attribution have always existed for the web, but for many reasons it feels so much worse now --how bad must it get before some kind of sea-change can occur? I'm not sure what the solution would b…

Shouldn't we invent a protocol that keeps the content you produce under your control so that places like forums or facebook are only discovery devices and interaction facilitators, but not custodians of all communication? Being able to independantly reach the source of piece of information is increasingly important.

Re: PhysicsForums and the Dead Internet Theory

#16

Post by tomrod »

Rodeoclash wrote: post #4

The ShackNews forum: https://www.shacknews.com/chatty was similar - go back in time on on it and you can find posts about 9/11 unfolding.

Ars Technica started with comms forums + this new idea to report tech news. The forums are still there but not nearly the camaraderie of the early days.

Re: PhysicsForums and the Dead Internet Theory

#17

Post by segasaturn »

Money quote:

> There’s also a social contract: when we create an account in an online community, we do it with the expectation that people we are going to interact with are primarily people. Oh, there will be shills, and bots, and advertisers, but the agreement between the users and the community provider is that they are going to try to defend us from that, and that in exchange we will provide our engagement and content. This is why the recent experiments from Meta with AI generated users are both ridiculous and sickening. When you might be interacting with something masquerading as a human, providing at best, tepid garbage, the value of human interaction via the internet is lost.

It is a disaster. I have no idea how to solve this issue, I can't see a future where artificially generated slop doesn't eventually overwhelm every part of the internet and make it unusable. The UGC era of the internet is probably over.

Re: PhysicsForums and the Dead Internet Theory

#18

Post by jeremyjh »

aaron_m04 wrote: post #14
roywiggins wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoever runs the site/database is just inserting rows with fake datestamps under existing (presumably abandoned) account names.

How could anyone possibly think it'd be OK to impersonate real humans?

They don't give a fuck if its "ok". They are just trying to scrape up some additional ad revenue, like 99% of the rest of the internet.

Re: PhysicsForums and the Dead Internet Theory

#19

Post by hooverd »

Terr_ wrote: post #3

Ooof. The idea--or reality--that humans' accounts would be hijacked by site-owners to make impersonating slop (presumably to bring in ad-revenue) is somehow both infuriating and energy-sapping-depressing. Issues of trust and attribution have always existed for the web, but for many reasons it feels so much worse now --how bad must it get before some kind of sea-change can occur? I'm not sure what the solution would b…

Don't sign your posts!

Re: PhysicsForums and the Dead Internet Theory

#20

Post by lumost »

segasaturn wrote: post #17

Money quote: > There’s also a social contract: when we create an account in an online community, we do it with the expectation that people we are going to interact with are primarily people. Oh, there will be shills, and bots, and advertisers, but the agreement between the users and the community provider is that they are going to try to defend us from that, and that in exchange we will provide our engagement and con…

I suspect that the honest outcome will be that platforms where AI content is allowed/encouraged will begin to appear like a video game. If everyone in school is ai-media famous - then no one is. There is most assuredly a market for a game where you are immediately influencer famous, but it's certainly much smaller than the market for social media.
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