The early Internet had a few simple rules:

• Never feed a troll
• Never trust anything written online
• Never tell anyone your real name or address
• There are no girls online (i.e. people are not who they claim to be)
• Online is not IRL

And most people knew these rules. The proliferation of the Internet has brought a lot of people who don’t understand these rules in to the fold and it has made the Internet a worse place. “Normies” seemingly think the Internet world works like your normal social interactions - it does not. The anonymity of the Internet brings out the worst in people. We really need to bring back the rules of the early Internet for the safety of everyone.

Feel free to comment more rules if you remember any.

As much as I miss the early Internet though, I genuinely do wish I’d had more protection from the seedier sites. I am not better off for having seen the gore and shock sites.

And most people knew these rules.

Prior to Gore asking to open up the Internet to the general public, most users were either academics, government employees, or students mostly on newsgroups. That most were on 56k dialup modems, and therefore their time online was limited. Fringers were then really on the fringes, instead of the other way around today. Yes, indeed, there was then etiquette, and in some places was strictly enforced by mods, either in BBS, newsgroups or IRC.

The proliferation of the Internet has brought a lot of people who don’t understand these rules in to the fold and it has made the Internet a worse place.

Once access became normalized and widespread as ADSL, which pretty much lowered the bar, most people just went straight online with complete disregard of what dark side they could run into later on, some even only starting the first time getting their web-only email addresses made such as Yahoo Mail or Google, before making their accounts for MMORPGs, online forums, Napster, Myspace, and later Facebook. That in some places, inept people have total disregard for their own online privacy, so bad they ended up being hacked or their personal identity stolen for fraud and other crimes.