The internet is worse than it used to be. How did we get here, and can we go back?
The internet is worse than it used to be. How did we get here, and can we go back?
In the early days the internet was a free, egalitarian space for anyone to surf. Now, commercial interests rule – but users do still have some control.
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I didn't coin the term and I too believe it's a huge generalization. However, "simpler" people are more susceptible to ads. The "normies" in question are the ones that don't use adblockers, they believe ads are normal and they believe ads don't affect them. Corporations capitalize on that. Better tech education would definitely help take some power away from corporations.
Edit: even now you'll find people that use Lemmy apps that have ads. The bigger the user base, the more greedy companies will find ways of exploiting the Fediverse.
Better tech education would definitely help take some power away from corporations
If you truly believe that, then vilifying more "simple" and less tech-savvy individuals is not the way to do it. Don't be angry that they click on ads. Be angry that they've been poisoned to think that behavior is normal on the internet.
Education is absolutely possible for those new to things like the fediverse. But education doesn't work when you use those labels for people. It widens the gap, it doesn't close it.
I was a normie once. I too fell for misinformation in the past. If it wasn't for the freely available information on the internet, I wouldn't be here today.
You went ahead and actually gathered the correct information. This is not what the "normies" in question do. Look, I didn't coin the term nor do I approve of the use of this term. I just wanted to explain what the other person meant with "normification".
Fair enough. What we desperately need is proper social media / modern internet education right from middle school level. Identifying dark patterns, echo chambers, bot/human impersonators, fake news. I feel like this awareness is missing in both youngsters and boomers.
Absolutely! I fear it's too late for many boomers but the younger generations are in desperate need of this. In Germany a lot of younger people are voting for Nazis because they have the cooler TikTok content. It's a total shitshow. Our schools are garbage regarding this. I know this because my wife is a teacher and she's the only one taking this seriously in her school. All of her colleagues don't see the need. It's really bad unfortunately.
Tbf, democracies kinda always suffered from this problem.
The italian long-term prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was a comedian before going into politics. And so was english prime minister Boris Johnsson. In other words, they were used to catering to audiences, instead of having technical training. (IIRC)
I disagree. Such a thing is not feasible. In 1500, when the printing press was developed, Martin Luther tried to raise all people in the entire population to be priests, because "now that they have books, they can educate themselves". Obviously, it didn't work. I think most people just aren't made for higher knowledge, and we should accept that fact rather than push people through a high-pressure high-stress levels school system.