It's all very well being more public, until a government decides to make 5 years of social media history an entry condition[0], and moreover imprisons those people who are denied entry instead of simply sending them home on the next flight[1].
I have no problem with this per se, as I have no plans to go to the US this decade, but I do worry about contagion. Perhaps being a public person on the internet is an idea whose time has come and gone.
My father lived through the Uruguay dictatorship in the 1970s and avoids all social media whenever possible.
I was an infant at the beginning of democracy, so I haven't taken that much care.
Now, it seems he'll be vindicated once again, I do plan on visiting the USA and I'm hoping my social media won't be an obstacle (fortunately I don't think I have anything, but who knows, maybe I liked a meme or something).
> I will often find a blog post on Hacker News that really resonates. And when I go to check the rest of the site there’s three other posts. And I think: I wish you’d write more!
I really miss that period in the 90's and early 2000's when:
- people were doing interesting things online and tending to those spaces regularly,
- Google actually worked and it was easy to find those things,
- Myspace/Facebook wasn't a thing
I'd love to have the general mood and vibe of the 90's back, which I think contributed greatly to the early Internet and the ability and desire to be public within it.
But even in the 90's, spam was a problem, and it's grown amd morphed into different things over time. Banner ad popups, link farms, SEO optimization, etc.
Age verification laws are going to fully destroy the Internet for anything other than approved business uses, such as selling stuff. Soon, any "public" left will be spammers-spammers in the modern form of influencers either directly trying to sell you something or sponsored in order to support/create a market. Some may argue we've mostly reached that point.
It's over. The forward thinkers need to think beyond the Internet. Until then it's closed groups and chats.
Forums need to make a comeback. Kids these days not only don't know what they are, but have trouble understanding them when explained. I somehow feel like forums could catch on again if there were a shiny enough platform.
To that end, can anyone recommend any decent forum engines? Discourse's UI rubs me the wrong way, and it would be nice to avoid PHP/MySQL as dependencies in general.
As someone who is sometimes on slow/spotty internet, Discourse's loading dots/circles rub me the wrong way. Like what are they *doing* for all this time while I wait for a page of relatively simple-looking HTML to load? I kept seeing these familiar coloured dots on seemingly disparate sites and it took me a while to realise they were all running Discourse.
I've spent (way too much) a lot of time on forums built using xenoforo, though I'm not sure of what's the stack underneath and what was built-in and what had been added by the operators.
Acting in public is hyperlocal - your behaviour affects those around you and gives those affected right of reply, if they have the courage to take it.
Publishing your actions on the Internet is a little different. If people were affected by the action, they are affected (likely unknowingly) by the publication too - and the audience that you grant right of reply has at best an ideological horse in the race, not true skin in the game. And not much courage is required to engage with an opposing position.
So "living publicly" on the internet leaves a permanent door open to ideological conflict, mob behaviour, and creates a disconnect between action and reaction - in both time and space.
Kinda alien for a monkey brain to wrap banana powered neurons around.
Everytime I intentionally interact with Meta's apps/data factories, I feel a bit like in the movie Matrix when Neo is disconnected from the Matrix, wakes up from his pod and sees the other pods. And have to admit I saw that movie when I was to young for it and that scene really did a number on me.
I don't mind being public but I mind if I'm in a way a slave to an entity that uses that to farm my identity and distorts my perception of reality.
If they farm your identity, they do so whether you post online or not. The only way to not contribute is to practice no identity. In that case your biomass still serves as a battery somehow (the movie fails to explain the physics here.)
As I heard it explained, the original manuscript had the humans kept alive because the Matrix was actually running on the humans' brains as the computing substrate. This both made much more sense than humans as a power source, was more horrific, and a better story.
Apparently this was deemed to hard for the unwashed masses to understand, and we were left with this battery analogy instead.
Most of the people disagreeing seem to be forgetting that public doesn't necessarily mean using your real name. We used to have vibrant communities full of people with names like "claxxon" and "zerg". claxxon knows about cisco networking and zerg knows about the best punk bands in the chicago area. Their real names? Not needed, wanted, or relevant, and we're offended you even asked, noob!
I try to live up to that ideal in a way. I'm more comfortable with my internet handle than my real name. However, connecting the dots between a username with any decently long history and the person behind that username is trivial unless you go out of your way not to reveal too much about yourself, and even then, given enough time, there will be enough breadcrumbs eventually.
I've given up on preventing people from connecting the dots. If people want to engage with me, they can do it with my username in situ, or send me an email which uses that same username. If they're being creepy about it, I can block them and ignore them.
> unless you go out of your way not to reveal too much about yourself, and even then, given enough time, there will be enough breadcrumbs eventually.
This is why it's not reasonable (for the vast, vast majority of people) to attempt this, and why we have to be realistic about our threat profiles.
Sure, anyone who knows what they're doing and is dedicated enough can find out information about me - that doesn't mean I'm going to advertise my name and location so that everyone can find that information about me with ease.
That use to be useful in a time where it was much harder to instantly de-mask those handles.
If you're trying to make a name for yourself and you're social long enough, you'll eventually have a decent sized footprint on the internet. Sites and services get breached all the time.
The internet is a very different place nowadays. There are private companies using your data for profit and manipulating you. Governments prosecuting you based on what you post and bad actors trying to hack/scam you. Even if you stay anonymous. And yet I think there are plenty of people being public online, just perhaps not as much sharing the kinds of things the author mentions.
If you're on the internet long enough, I think you learn that openness has plenty of downsides. You indirectly interact with tens of thousands of people and in that set, there will be people who don't wish you well, sometimes for reasons you can't even grasp. In the 1990s, I used to put my phone number in my .signature file. I've come to regret that. In the 2000s, I participated in relatively large online forums under my real name, and have gotten threats mailed to my family and employer. Etc, etc.
If you want others to broadcast their lives, I don't think that moralizing is enough; you gotta offset the negatives. Which basically means "positively engage", but we mostly don't do it on forums such as Twitter. Have you ever thanked anyone for a recommendation, a photo, an article? And how often do you do that, compared to posting to disagree?
I've been posing online with my real name since the 90's because if forces me to self sensor. I don't say things on the internet that I wouldn't say to people in the real world who know where I live.
I think the internet would be a lot nicer place if people were held accountable for the things they say and do.
I agree with your last paragraph but “real names” isn’t a solution. Instagram comments are filled with people saying awful, stupid things using their real names, faces, and enough information to find their locations.
Additionally I’d say this to your face. Pseudonymity isn’t about disowning word and actions.
But how would they be held accountable? Who gets to decide right vs wrong? How do you ensure the accountability mechanism isn’t used against you?
Today, people online are “held accountable” via harassment, threats, SWATting, and such directed towards their friends/family/employer, by internet lunatics who exist across the political spectrum. If you’re popular enough, it doesn’t matter if you’re a leftist, rightist, or literally Mr. Rogers; you’ll get haters who go out of their way to hurt you using whatever PII and vulnerability you expose. Or if you’re not popular, but unlucky and post something mildly controversial from either the mainstream left or right; or if you’re very unlucky. Or if you’re publicly a woman, you’ll face sexual harassment and potentially stalking.
And some of these haters and sex pests have nothing to lose, so holding them accountable doesn’t solve the issue.
I do think a solution involves holding people accountable, but carefully. Perhaps to start, people form overlapping social groups, so a system where a group can only punish people within that group (e.g. banning them from posting), but can’t outside (e.g. harassing them or people close to them, especially in-person, or threatening their job).
Pseudonymity allows people to freely express ideas with others without fear of it seeping into all aspects of their lives. How else would individuals share and get feedback on things like health issues, relationships, employment, etc. without the threat of repercussion? The internet is so powerful as a tool for connection because of this layer of pseudonymity and striving for a 'nicer' internet is being content with a shallow version of the interconnected human experience.
this was the idea being sold in like 2011 or wherever the real names policy was implemented in social media. we can now confidently say it doesn’t work and also deprives people of privacy unfortunately
Unfortunately that does not really work for people who live in countries governed by oppressive regimes, or people who are in any way different (immigrant, LGBT, etc), and in fact, even posting with the best of intentions will have people wanting you dead. Ask me how I know.
>> I think the internet would be a lot nicer place if people were held accountable for the things they say and do.
I agree. I've often advocated for zero anonymity by default. Everyone traceable by anyone. The thinking is that bad behavior (threats and such) could be reported. There was enough pushback to make me rethink that. People will still make threats when you know who they are - less often but they will. Offline (real world) harassment is still possible too without being identified, though thats getting harder every day.
Verified identity online is not the same thing as being held accountable.
> I think the internet would be a lot nicer place if people were held accountable for the things they say and do.
Agreed. Equal rights for all people regardless of race wouldn't have happened if individuals starting the first discussions were held accountable for their words.
Same: I decided c. 2000 that it was better to be the real me everywhere and to live with the benefits but also the restrictions. I am probably a kinder, more constructive person for it.
> I think the internet would be a lot nicer place if people were held accountable for the things they say and do.
Then I think you've been very fortunate (or sheltered). It's really not about accountability in any rational sense: it's not that I want to be a secret Nazi. It's that when you interact with enough people on the internet, you will probably encounter at least one person who isn't nice. Someone who gets upset not because of what you say, but maybe simply because you're "not worthy" of the attention of others. Who feels humiliated because you politely corrected them about some minor detail. Or maybe who just flat out misinterprets what you're trying to say.
Again, in a circle of real-life friends, this is rare. But in a sampling of 10,000 random strangers, even the nicest person will probably have one sworn enemy.
And yeah, I get it: anonymity shields the bad guys too. But on balance, I think there's a lot more good than bad when you look at pseudonymous content on the internet.
A recent thing is also that you cannot predict what will be controversial tomorrow. This that are basic common sense today might be controversial tomorrow.
Dumb example: gender. As early as twenty years ago it wasn’t controversial to say that women don’t have a penis. Today it is (i know I’m getting downvoted just for making this example).
So yeah, being public is a dangerous game with huge margins for losing.
It's a good example. People have been fired, reprimanded, blacklisted from their field, harassed and stalked for publicly objecting to the gender identity viewpoint. It somewhat reminds me of the tactics scientologists used to suppress dissent. I'm glad that era is starting to come to an end now.
I think you’re right that it’s hard. But I think you’re implying that it could be less hard if we just behaved better à la “be the change you want to see”, and I believe you’re wrong about that. The people that send death threats do not read your advice, nor do they care enough to take it to heart. The people that _will_ listen were not sending death threats to begin with. And getting 500 thankyou-messages does not outweigh the handful of death threats
The people who send death threats, call peoples employers, etc largely view themselves as very normal people that are fighting a just fight. Social media has had plenty of these folks, IRC before it, and probably BBSs before that.
They probably do read that message, but they say to themselves, "Well when I did it it was for a good cause."
I think it does. Internet death threats are upsetting but you also learn they tend to be toothless 99.9% of the time. Most of it is just internet tough guys hundreds or thousands of miles away.
A lifetime of small positive outcomes can easily offset that for many people.
I think it's important to have real-world actual experiences written down because a lot of online information is just people repeating what other people say and it's not true. I'm hoping that by just writing the truth of what I've seen with my own eyes, people will have real information to work with, and maybe LLMs will have this in there somewhere and we'll move a little closer to fact.
Readit News
I have no problem with this per se, as I have no plans to go to the US this decade, but I do worry about contagion. Perhaps being a public person on the internet is an idea whose time has come and gone.
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1dz0g2ykpeo.amp
[1] https://amp.dw.com/en/german-nationals-us-immigration-detain...
I was an infant at the beginning of democracy, so I haven't taken that much care.
Now, it seems he'll be vindicated once again, I do plan on visiting the USA and I'm hoping my social media won't be an obstacle (fortunately I don't think I have anything, but who knows, maybe I liked a meme or something).
Dead Comment
I really miss that period in the 90's and early 2000's when:
- people were doing interesting things online and tending to those spaces regularly,
- Google actually worked and it was easy to find those things,
- Myspace/Facebook wasn't a thing
I'd love to have the general mood and vibe of the 90's back, which I think contributed greatly to the early Internet and the ability and desire to be public within it.
But even in the 90's, spam was a problem, and it's grown amd morphed into different things over time. Banner ad popups, link farms, SEO optimization, etc.
Age verification laws are going to fully destroy the Internet for anything other than approved business uses, such as selling stuff. Soon, any "public" left will be spammers-spammers in the modern form of influencers either directly trying to sell you something or sponsored in order to support/create a market. Some may argue we've mostly reached that point.
It's over. The forward thinkers need to think beyond the Internet. Until then it's closed groups and chats.
To that end, can anyone recommend any decent forum engines? Discourse's UI rubs me the wrong way, and it would be nice to avoid PHP/MySQL as dependencies in general.
I've spent (way too much) a lot of time on forums built using xenoforo, though I'm not sure of what's the stack underneath and what was built-in and what had been added by the operators.
Publishing your actions on the Internet is a little different. If people were affected by the action, they are affected (likely unknowingly) by the publication too - and the audience that you grant right of reply has at best an ideological horse in the race, not true skin in the game. And not much courage is required to engage with an opposing position.
So "living publicly" on the internet leaves a permanent door open to ideological conflict, mob behaviour, and creates a disconnect between action and reaction - in both time and space.
Kinda alien for a monkey brain to wrap banana powered neurons around.
I don't mind being public but I mind if I'm in a way a slave to an entity that uses that to farm my identity and distorts my perception of reality.
Apparently this was deemed to hard for the unwashed masses to understand, and we were left with this battery analogy instead.
I've given up on preventing people from connecting the dots. If people want to engage with me, they can do it with my username in situ, or send me an email which uses that same username. If they're being creepy about it, I can block them and ignore them.
This is why it's not reasonable (for the vast, vast majority of people) to attempt this, and why we have to be realistic about our threat profiles.
Sure, anyone who knows what they're doing and is dedicated enough can find out information about me - that doesn't mean I'm going to advertise my name and location so that everyone can find that information about me with ease.
If you're trying to make a name for yourself and you're social long enough, you'll eventually have a decent sized footprint on the internet. Sites and services get breached all the time.
If you want others to broadcast their lives, I don't think that moralizing is enough; you gotta offset the negatives. Which basically means "positively engage", but we mostly don't do it on forums such as Twitter. Have you ever thanked anyone for a recommendation, a photo, an article? And how often do you do that, compared to posting to disagree?
I think the internet would be a lot nicer place if people were held accountable for the things they say and do.
Additionally I’d say this to your face. Pseudonymity isn’t about disowning word and actions.
Today, people online are “held accountable” via harassment, threats, SWATting, and such directed towards their friends/family/employer, by internet lunatics who exist across the political spectrum. If you’re popular enough, it doesn’t matter if you’re a leftist, rightist, or literally Mr. Rogers; you’ll get haters who go out of their way to hurt you using whatever PII and vulnerability you expose. Or if you’re not popular, but unlucky and post something mildly controversial from either the mainstream left or right; or if you’re very unlucky. Or if you’re publicly a woman, you’ll face sexual harassment and potentially stalking.
And some of these haters and sex pests have nothing to lose, so holding them accountable doesn’t solve the issue.
I do think a solution involves holding people accountable, but carefully. Perhaps to start, people form overlapping social groups, so a system where a group can only punish people within that group (e.g. banning them from posting), but can’t outside (e.g. harassing them or people close to them, especially in-person, or threatening their job).
I agree. I've often advocated for zero anonymity by default. Everyone traceable by anyone. The thinking is that bad behavior (threats and such) could be reported. There was enough pushback to make me rethink that. People will still make threats when you know who they are - less often but they will. Offline (real world) harassment is still possible too without being identified, though thats getting harder every day.
Verified identity online is not the same thing as being held accountable.
What does this mean? What sort of accountability do you have in mind?
Agreed. Equal rights for all people regardless of race wouldn't have happened if individuals starting the first discussions were held accountable for their words.
I stand behind my words and that’s part of my social identity and there’s an imperfect record.
It’s social ledger that has an incredible memory tied to my mortal label. Good bad ugly and just plain wrong.
Then I think you've been very fortunate (or sheltered). It's really not about accountability in any rational sense: it's not that I want to be a secret Nazi. It's that when you interact with enough people on the internet, you will probably encounter at least one person who isn't nice. Someone who gets upset not because of what you say, but maybe simply because you're "not worthy" of the attention of others. Who feels humiliated because you politely corrected them about some minor detail. Or maybe who just flat out misinterprets what you're trying to say.
Again, in a circle of real-life friends, this is rare. But in a sampling of 10,000 random strangers, even the nicest person will probably have one sworn enemy.
And yeah, I get it: anonymity shields the bad guys too. But on balance, I think there's a lot more good than bad when you look at pseudonymous content on the internet.
Dumb example: gender. As early as twenty years ago it wasn’t controversial to say that women don’t have a penis. Today it is (i know I’m getting downvoted just for making this example).
So yeah, being public is a dangerous game with huge margins for losing.
They probably do read that message, but they say to themselves, "Well when I did it it was for a good cause."
A lifetime of small positive outcomes can easily offset that for many people.
Deleted Comment
E.g. my genome variant report https://viz.roshangeorge.dev/roshan-genvue/
My wife’s pregnancy as logged by me https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Pregnancy
I think it's important to have real-world actual experiences written down because a lot of online information is just people repeating what other people say and it's not true. I'm hoping that by just writing the truth of what I've seen with my own eyes, people will have real information to work with, and maybe LLMs will have this in there somewhere and we'll move a little closer to fact.
I talked a little bit about the risks in another comment on a similar post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46336356