Turns Out That Not Everyone Is Nice And Honest On This Internet Thing

from the geee...-really? dept

There's this weird myth that goes around that at one point in time everyone online believed that somehow the internet was supposed to turn into this lovely utopia of happy people all working together towards the common good. It's not entirely clear where that belief came from, but it's never been a part of the internet vision that most folks seemed to have about it (just ask some people about the flamewars of decades past). There certainly is talk about how the internet can help enable better communications and new information flows, but it never seemed like anyone ever thought that "bad things" would automatically be kept out. That's why it's odd to see this Baltimore Sun article pointing out that the web hasn't become this fabled utopia. They don't say who predicted it, but suggest that it must have been true. What's even more amusing, though, after they catalog all the gaming, spamming and audacious behavior online, they get to the heart of the matter. Someone points out that the nice thing about the internet is that, sure, people can do all of this stuff, but others can also expose it. And that's really been the key all along. No one ever thought that the "bad stuff" wouldn't show up online -- but they recognized that the internet is a wonderful platform to allow anyone to then come in and respond and deal with it. It's an ongoing process. It's not a perfect world by any means, but it is a world that opens up lots of possibilities -- for good uses, bad uses, neutral uses, everything in between and responses to all of those uses.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2007 @ 11:27am

    duh

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    misanthropic humanist, 5 Jan 2007 @ 11:36am

    duh!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    The infamous Joe, 5 Jan 2007 @ 11:36am

    duh?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    oceanstarz, 5 Jan 2007 @ 11:41am

    Like, Duh !

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    8L0W |V|3, 5 Jan 2007 @ 11:43am

    duh

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2007 @ 11:58am

    Haha duh again

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    justin, 5 Jan 2007 @ 11:59am

    ...

    DEE TEE DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEe

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    PhysicsGuy, 5 Jan 2007 @ 11:59am

    my dreams of utopia have been shattered :(

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2007 @ 12:09pm

    duh

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    mark, 5 Jan 2007 @ 12:14pm

    DUR

    well DUR!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Disgusted, 5 Jan 2007 @ 12:16pm

    ...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Travis, 5 Jan 2007 @ 12:23pm

    ha haa

    Oh man... this was kinda a lame articile, but then I got to the comments and saw all the "durs"... priceless...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    me, 5 Jan 2007 @ 12:32pm

    duh

    DUH

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Lazerus King, 5 Jan 2007 @ 12:43pm

    Well

    Duh

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2007 @ 12:46pm

    Just like life.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Homer, 5 Jan 2007 @ 12:49pm

    d'oh

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Cow, 5 Jan 2007 @ 12:51pm

    Moo

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Daran Vector, 5 Jan 2007 @ 1:01pm

    DUH?!

    I just want to DUH all the people who thought that the first duh wasn't good enough.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2007 @ 1:14pm

    No Shit!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    s, 5 Jan 2007 @ 1:16pm

    O RLY?

    Y RLY

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Clappy Hoohaa, 5 Jan 2007 @ 1:17pm

    techno-illiterates will like it

    The Baltimore Sun article is silly but appeals to techno-illiterates who want to feel better about the fact that they can barely turn on the machine let alone use it. "Ya see Madge -- it's not a utopia. It's a bunch of nasty people and weirdos and gamblers and athiests and porn addicts, and they all steal music. We are actually smarter, better, nicer, more morally grounded people because we can't... errr... chose not to use computers." And there you have it in a nutshell.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      SPR, 5 Jan 2007 @ 1:23pm

      Re: techno-illiterates will like it

      I guess what you're saying is that computer illiteracy makes one a better person. Crap!! All this time I thought it was high standards and treating others as you would like to be treated.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Brad Eleven, 5 Jan 2007 @ 1:20pm

    This just in...

    ...the wind blows !!!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Agent Smith, 5 Jan 2007 @ 1:26pm

    Everything Zen?

    "Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy."

    "It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost."

    "Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      misanthropic humanist, 5 Jan 2007 @ 5:28pm

      Re: Everything Zen?

      Life is suffering. But it is also a struggle against suffering. Without the duality the path to nirvana is meaningless. Without enemies to vanquish and masters to turn into servants there is only cold comfort, and comfort is the killer. The greatest of these tasks of course is the self. Men are at war because every man is at war with himself. Those who would build perfection must watch it swept away, because with perfection there is no change, there is no life.

      I think Haskell would have been a good choice, or maybe Smalltalk, but the architect insisted on visual basic didn't he? No wonder those sunglasses don't quite fit you :)

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2007 @ 1:39pm

    ...

    Duh...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2007 @ 1:47pm

    pointless article/post

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    ep, 5 Jan 2007 @ 2:07pm

    better comment

    du

    (a 33% improvement on "duh", my bold accomplishment for the day)

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    j, 5 Jan 2007 @ 2:12pm

    DOOOOOOYYY!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    The Man, 5 Jan 2007 @ 2:21pm

    Porn

    Can anyone help me find porn on ther internet? I once had a friend who said he knew someone that saw a naked picture on the Internet. I think he may have been lying.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Jim, 5 Jan 2007 @ 6:37pm

    As long as there is a plentiful supply of pr0n... The internet is Utopia for me.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    hoeppner, 5 Jan 2007 @ 7:37pm

    da dee dee

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Dude, 6 Jan 2007 @ 1:41pm

    Why the Internet was a utopia

    > There's this weird myth that goes around that at one point in time everyone online believed that somehow the internet was supposed to turn into this lovely utopia of happy people all working together towards the common good. It's not entirely clear where that belief came from

    --> This belief came from the fact that the Internet *used to* be a utopia where happy people worked together for the benefit of all. That was 1969-1994, back when the only people on the Internet were scientist and engineers. Scientist and engineers are nice people who lack the selfishness inherent in most humans.

    Then, shortly after the WWW was invented, all the unwashed proletarian masses invaded the Internet because then any idiot could us it. So of course idiots started using it. That's when the Internet ceased to be populated by nice people.

    The image of the Internet being a utopia comes from the distant memory of what it was like before all you fucktards ruined it.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      misanthropic humanist, 7 Jan 2007 @ 1:43pm

      Re: Why the Internet was a utopia

      "This belief came from the fact that the Internet *used to* be a utopia where happy people worked together for the benefit of all. That was 1969-1994, back when the only people on the Internet were scientist and engineers. Scientist and engineers are nice people who lack the selfishness inherent in most humans."

      I must say you are not entirely correct Dude, though you make a partially valid observation on historical changes.

      I am one of those "Scientists and Engineers", though not old enough to be a first generation user, and you give us and the formative "internet' too much credit. There were always plenty of unpleasant characters in the mix. The internet then, as such, was not a coherent network at all. It was a disparate collection of smaller networks each with their own tribal politics and conventions. If you knew some of the scandalous events that were necessary for the formation of the modern "Web" you would not lament those halcyon days (much like the inhabitants of our contries forget the genocides and exploitation on which our nations were built). It was not news back then. Remember too that the province of ARPA, one of the most vital seeds of everything you see today, was killing people. That is what the defence industry does. So, some of the internets founders were mean, miserable and selfish people too, particularly the academics whose cloistered vanity and rivalries are legendary.

      The "unwashed masses" are not the problem, unless you dislike them purely for their status, it is those that came to prey upon them. And if you are going to be pragmatic and Darwinian about humanity, "problem" is a misleading word. Inevitability would seem more the case.

      If one can make such a sweeping collective judgement, the ethics of many IT corporations are far below that of the defence sector. At least the latter know they are killing people and are involved in an unpleasant though sometimes necessary business. Most businessmen of the former ilk know fullwell that their actions destroy lives and rob the populace of wealth, yet simply do not care. Their actions are excused by the niceties of modern business.

      Wherever you find sheep you will find wolves. The spammers, phishers, patent attorneys, theives, sex-offenders and profiteers of division and control are merely thriving on a new food source.

      Us scientists are still here, still ploughing our little fields and still hoping that technology can become a force for positive social change. But we can never offer a "Utopia" free of predators. You must do that for yourselves.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 8 Jan 2007 @ 7:55pm

      Re: Why the Internet was a utopia

      you just got put back in your box dude...

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Dude, 13 Jan 2007 @ 12:14pm

    Re: Why the Internet was a utopia

    > you just got put back in your box dude...
    Whatever that means... Man in the box, get back in the box.

    > I am one of those "Scientists and Engineers", though not old enough to be a first generation user, and you give us and the formative "internet' too much credit.

    And yet you misspelled Internet. It's a proper noun if you are talking about "the Internet".

    > if you are going to be pragmatic and Darwinian about humanity

    It is always good to be pragmatic. As for natural selection, it's real and affects our species like any other whether or not you believe in it.

    > If you knew some of the scandalous events that were necessary for the formation of the modern "Web" you would not lament those halcyon days

    I never claim that the technology was built in an Ivory tower. Yes, there are a lot of hacks and kludges that persist till this day. That has nothing to do with the point of this discussion, which is that the reason the Internet isn't a "nice" or "safe" place anymore is that all the assholes have discovered it.

    > the ethics of many IT corporations are far below that of the defence sector.

    Corporations and sectors cannot have ethics. Only people can have ethics. There is no such thing as group ethics. Nor has anyone ever provided a meaningful way to measure, add, multiple, or divide ethics so as to derive some meaningful "average" within a group.

    That said, we all know assholes when we see them and can tell if the majority of a people in a room are assholes. We don't need to use statistics to calculate that.

    > we can never offer a "Utopia" free of predators.

    No one has suggested we could. I am merely showing the reason why the Internet was a much nicer place 10/20 years ago. The reason being that the majority of the people on it were nicer back then because only technical people were interested in it back then.

    The thesis of my argument is that you are basically less likely to be murdered, mugged, back-stabbed, ripped off, chewed out, or otherwise taken advantage of by scientists and engineers than by lawyers, salesmen, advertisers, religious freaks and all the other personalities that make up the general population.

    It used to be that the Internet was compose almost 100% of students, professors, and professionals in the science and engineering fields. Now those same people, although greater in number, represent a tiny fraction of Internet users and even less of the Internet traffic.

    And yes, DARPA did start the Internet as a means of keeping communications channels operational in the event of a nuclear war. However, by 1980 DARPA was a small player in the Internet. TCP/IP, sockets, email, gopher, telnet, html, Ethernet, and all the other technologies that make the Internet what it is came after DARPA. Eventually DARPA net even truncated itself from the Internet for security reasons. Evidently, the guys are DARPA saw a movie called War Games.

    Here's a little tidbit that sums up my point of view. Back in the early nineties I could go to a discussion board (posted or real-time), introduce myself, and have a polite, meaningful, and intelligent conversation with a person I just met. That happened all the time.

    Today, when I try to do the same thing all I get is "ill pwn u ass u l0zer n00b". This clearly shows how the people on the Internet today are comprised mostly of degenerate slime.

    There may have been flame wars back in the 70s, 80s, early 90s, but they were much rarer and less tolerated. And the majority of conversations were intelligent exchanges of ideas. This is no longer the case.

    Going back to the premise of this TechDirt thread, why hasn't the Internet become a wonderful place of exchanging ideas... The answer is that is used to be, but then everyone jumped on the Internet bandwagon and most people aren't that nice or intelligent. In fact, I'd say that *at least* one of every four Americans is retarded. How else can you explain all those reality TV shows or Bush being president?

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.