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We used to think that if we had user-generated content, we would all be immune to governments, corporations and other powerful actors spreading propaganda because we would get our information from each other, not them.
Turns out: governments, corporations, other powerful actors are perfectly capable of paying "users" to "generate content" and not even disclose this.
The Internet used to be an exciting development, now it's just like, yeah it exists, so what.
I remember, after being on the internet for a while, when the www standard was being adopted and all the web pages started popping up. It was so cool to see the kinds of content people were using it for. Then we got search engines like altavista, and it honestly seemed magical. It was like this egalitarian utopia, where all this knowledge was available to everyone; it was hard not to feel like it was the start of an amazing new phase for society.
So it was just soul crushing to me when we first started seeing intentional manipulation and misinformation. Search results that were skewed by paid advertisements or google bombing, propaganda being pushed into discussion forums, and all the fake news... it all represented the end of that amazing new phase. Heartbreaking.
Oh man when i was young and go to play and explore with my Neopets, downloading things on limewire & chatting on msn messenger after dialling in to the 'internet' was magical.
I should check on my neopets, it's been... A while.
If this were the Dreamcast, Leonard Nemoy would be giving you shade from beyond the grave.
I am too young for that, but I do remember discovering the concept of wikis and finding it amazing that websites could now be written by their audience.
A fairly dead concept by now, nowadays the entire rest of the Internet is more interesting than wikis.
No. Wikis will always be the coolest.
............also I'm not cool.
And using LLMs, then eventually getting useful idiots involved as well.