Lauren Weinstein

Greetings. The amount of cynicism I see here about the Internet is really quite remarkable. Maybe it helps to have been engaged in this wonder of the world from the early ARPANET days (as I have) to fully appreciate what a fantastic tool the Internet is.

And yes, like any tool, the Internet can be used for good or evil. A hammer can help build a house for a needy family, or it can bash in someone's skull. The hammer doesn't make that decision -- the people using it are in control.

And so it is with the Internet as we stand on the cusp of 2023. Best, -L

Dec 26, 2022 at 4:59pmWeb
Show threadLaureDec 26, 2022
@lauren and powerful often opaque interests are those wielding the hammer. Important to recognize that so we know it’s not just an open free space but one with malign actors across the globe and in the US increasingly dominating. We need coordinated responses.
Show threadRayDec 26, 2022
@lauren exactly the way I feel about the QT discussions I see here.
Show threadMike Masnick ✅Dec 26, 2022
@lauren I noted the same thing last week. The level of cynicism is frustrating even if understandable.
Show threadAnthony DiPierroDec 26, 2022

@mmasnick Here we are, on the cusp of 2023, and the amount of spam in our inboxes is as much as it ever has been.

I have to admit, after thinking about it for a bit, the Internet has likely done much more good than harm. But I can’t help but be disappointed when comparing the reality to the dreams I had in the late 90s and early 00s.

Show threadjoncamfieldDec 27, 2022
@mmasnick @lauren The cynicism among my usual crowd of FLOSS and human rights nerds has been the most heart breaking. It's here! A tool that is anti-hate at its founding, is open, is protocol-centered, FLOSS, etc. It's not perfect but FFS we can make it better together.
Show threadLauren WeinsteinDec 27, 2022
@joncamfield @mmasnick A significant percentage of the crowd here seems to spend much of their time trying to find ways to keep anyone "not like them" out. That's very sad.
Show threadMike Masnick ✅Dec 27, 2022
@lauren @joncamfield agreed. though the simple fact is that those people can't be kept out, and the culture is changing as new people enter.
Show threadkkellerDec 27, 2022
@mmasnick @lauren @joncamfield I don't totally understand why people see things this way. If they want to keep their "culture", they can stick to their home or local feeds. Ultimately everyone is going to see content they don't want to see on the federated feed, because it's *everything*! Users can use mutes and blocks to manage their federated feed.
Show threadLauren WeinsteinDec 27, 2022
@kkeller @mmasnick @joncamfield The short answer is that basic human nature hasn't changed since the caves, and probably earlier.
Show threadPeter PrincipleDec 27, 2022

@lauren @kkeller @mmasnick @joncamfield

The scrappy, chip-on-their-shoulder immigrants against the resentful, hyper protective nativists.

"Gangs of Mastodon"

Show threadEeeee WooooDec 27, 2022

@lauren @joncamfield @mmasnick I think there’s something else going on. Please y’all. Look closer.

There was a post earlier today - all Outraged. “I can’t believe half the people here did ABC in response to a post.” So I went and looked. And it’s not there.

I’m not saying Mastodon is perfect. But someone/s are manipulating the users of mastodon. And those who might come here.

Show threadSlightlyCyberpunkDec 26, 2022
@lauren The difference is that everyone understands how a hammer works, even if they've never used one before...but plenty of people who use the Internet every day still don't really have a clue how it works. And that's why it is now so thoroughly dominated by a small number of massive corporations who promise to protect that blissful ignorance...if you only let them control the majority of your life...
Show threadLauren WeinsteinDec 26, 2022
@admin My objection is to blanket condemnations of Internet firms. Even among the largest, they are *not* all the same, and there is a wide spectrum of how (for example) user data is protected. Many Internet critics refuse to accept this fact. It's so much simpler just to say they're all bad! I hear much the same from some quarters who claim that all corporations are bad. Or all charities are bad. These are nonsense claims.
Show threadSlightlyCyberpunkDec 26, 2022
@lauren they are bad because they take away users' agency and control. That's why Mastodon wasn't created by Google or Facebook or Twitter or any of the others. That's why so many platforms start out "open" but get increasingly locked down and restricted as soon as they start gaining dominance, as we've seen with Android for example. No words written in a privacy policy can fix that, especially when those can be and frequently are changed unilaterally at any time. There may be good managers at times, but there is no such thing as a good company. New people take over, they get bought and sold, and the users get dragged along whether they like it or not, and no corporation can or will ever change THAT. They can't. That is what they are by definition.
Show threadLauren WeinsteinDec 26, 2022
@admin For what it's worth, as much as I'm enjoying this platform, if it continues on its current course it's likely to be lost in the noise among platforms that treat would-be users a bit better. But I don't want to start that discussion again in this thread.
Show threadSlightlyCyberpunkDec 26, 2022
@lauren well I'm not saying Mastodon is perfect...humans aren't so ya can't expect our creations to be either...but at least here we have the freedom to address the problems we find; at least we are in control of it, together. At least it's democratic rather than a dictatorship, based on user consent rather than profit margins.
Show threadPatrick GallowayDec 26, 2022
@lauren Blaming the Internet is like blaming the sky; it's everywhere, it's mostly good, sometimes it brings bad stuff. Doesn't mean you''re not gonna go outside, right?
Show threadThomas A. Fine Dec 26, 2022
@lauren A lot of society ills are blamed on the Internet when the real origins in my humble opinion were the media deregulation steps taken in the 90s, and a steady increase in corporate power.
Show threadJohnWDec 26, 2022

@thomasafine @lauren That is my belief too.

Remember in the not so distant past, the uproar about video games creating serial killers? Turns out nope, that wasn't it.

Show threadLauren WeinsteinDec 26, 2022
@the_Effekt @thomasafine Or violent TV shows and movies. Or comic books.
Show threadLauren WeinsteinDec 26, 2022
@thomasafine It is notable, for example, the damage done by FOX News that is so enormous and so rarely discussed. The highest rated news channel on cable, and it spews disinformation and propaganda day after day, even on military bases.
Show threadThomas A. Fine Dec 26, 2022
@lauren Fox News was created just a few months after the Telecommunications Act of 1996 passed. And couldn't have existed (in the form we know) before that.
Show threadLauren WeinsteinDec 26, 2022
@thomasafine Exactly.
Show threadThomas A. Fine Dec 26, 2022

@lauren But it's my contention that a much bigger problem than Fox is how corporate buyouts of all media subtly but significantly altered how all news is reported.

Maximizing profit demands that news focuses on divisive issues (leading to higher demand), and that they report news in a way that tends to not settle issues (leading to additional stories with little additional expense).

Show threadFemme MalheureuseDec 26, 2022

@lauren Love it. I have long used nearly the same analogy but with a screwdriver.

A screwdriver is a very helpful tool; if you don't know how to use it correctly, pay inadequate attention using it, or have bad intentions employing it, you can do a LOT of damage.

Show threadishotjr ✨💙✨💗✨Dec 26, 2022
@lauren love this, and also want to hear ARPANET stories! 💙
Show threadLauren WeinsteinDec 26, 2022
@ishotjr I'll get around to more of them eventually.
Show threadaccount di SchrödingerDec 26, 2022
@lauren
Yes, a knife can be used for surgery or for killing.
But, sorry, if its builders sharpen both edges and the point, they're building a dagger aimed to stab.
Show threadMike Dec 26, 2022
@lauren I suspect much of the cynicism stems from the commercialization of the internet. I remember when there was optimism that the internet would change the world for the better... and we can see how well that went today. Yes, the internet is still a useful tool, but capitalism does what capitalism does.
Show threadFridoDec 26, 2022
@lauren Hi, I've never been cynical about the internet. It's a great concept. It's a bunch of connections and switches, like the electrical grid. I'm veeery cynical about some of the companies and people operating it, though. And unlike the hammer, the internet needs oversight, exactly because the control can't be handed to a few players.
Show threadGene Thomas Dec 26, 2022

@lauren

ARPANET, CompuServe, USENET, GEnie, and the newest 1200 baud modems: I used them all, and then some.

Show threadLauren WeinsteinDec 26, 2022
@RedStateExile Yeah. I started at 110 baud.
Show threadGene Thomas Dec 26, 2022
@lauren
Yea, my actual start was 300 baud built into a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100
Show threadColin HenryDec 26, 2022
@lauren I’m cynical about capitalism, not the internet. but the former has mostly eaten the latter.
Show threadAnne OminousDec 26, 2022

@lauren

every department of defense project can get launched into the sun.

have a nice day.

Show threadShannonDec 26, 2022
@lauren That argument is what gun-rights advocates use though. The internet can be great, but also really dark. There are reasons to moderate content. The US moderated ISIS for example. They were rightly not allowed free speech to spread their ideology.
Show threadMatt StegmeirDec 26, 2022
@lauren the Internet was generally quite wonderful before it was profitable.
Show threadLauren WeinsteinDec 26, 2022
@mattsteg In the U.S., if it wasn't profitable it likely wouldn't exist today at all.
Show threadMatt StegmeirDec 26, 2022

@lauren it existed and grew for decades before really being successfully monetized.

That wouldn't have magically changed.

And it wasn't "profitability" that made it structurally worse, it was that the core of widespread profitability was making end-users the product (and thus massive amounts of effort fundamentally directed at making things worse for the end user)

Show threadLauren WeinsteinDec 26, 2022
@mattsteg Don't start with the "users are the product" nonsense with me, please. That phrase has always been misleading and has become a mantra of Big Tech Haters. The Internet grew initially with large government subsidies that would be impossible today. An entirely different world. I'm a student of history, but I don't wallow in it.
Show threadMatt StegmeirDec 26, 2022
@lauren it's pretty clear that the quality and nature of online services has transformed pretty drastically (and in many negatively) from the initial .com boom commercialization where the focus was (to a much larger extent) on solving actual user problems in order to establish a foothold.
Show threadMatt StegmeirDec 26, 2022
@lauren We've (in broad brush terms) moved from services working to do the best job of giving you what you want/need, to services working to provide quality recommendations that are even better than you expected, to services finding out how much of what THEY want they can fit in there. And that's before even touching on privacy ussues.
Show threadRichard ReismanDec 26, 2022
@lauren Yes, it is a tool, and "we shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us." I have been following online collaboration since 1970, and find it obvious we made a wrong turn is shaping our tools, so they serve the providers, not the users, and shape us for dysfunction. Expansion here: https://techpolicy.press/understanding-social-media-an-increasingly-reflexive-extension-of-humanity/ and an alternative shape here: https://techpolicy.press/delegation-or-the-twenty-nine-words-that-the-internet-forgot/
Understanding Social Media: An Increasingly Reflexive Extension of Humanity

Richard Reisman and Chris Riley argue social technologies can bring positive new dynamics into human interaction.

Tech Policy Press
Show threadWraitheDec 26, 2022

@lauren I just think about the joke I’ve had about the Internet since USENet:

Pro: the Internet allows us to speak to potentially everyone in the world, and understand what their thoughts, beliefs, and opinions are.

Cons: See Above.

Show threadThe Spoonless KitchenDec 26, 2022

@lauren I mean, Facebook caused a literal genocide in Myanmar, and in 2021 alone, Twitter was responsible for tens of millions of COVID deaths, and the mutation of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 that is now basically unstoppable and mutating at the speed of the atom. With the world now living in the biological equivalent of nuclear winter, as a result.

Did the Internet do this? No. But it came out of the so-called "social media websites" ON the Internet.

I've been on the Internet for decades as well. I have yet to see anything positive on the Internet, that is not eventually ruined, or becomes ruinous to health and human civilization.

The world was a better place before the Internet. Now the Internet can never be untangled from the world, and that is truly unfortunate. As we see with this ongoing, never-ending pandemic.

Show threadMkeenoDec 27, 2022
@lauren kind of like a gun