[1/*] Thanks to Twitter's continuing "we really want the future to look just like the past" social conformity changes, I realized something depressing about computing that I had not considered before. I thought I might share it with you so you can be depressed, too.https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1427706890113495046 …
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[2/*] In the beginning, when arose the "Hacker ethic" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_ethic …), we already had the world that Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are recreating. There were central media authorities, and they told you what was true, and most people had little other access.
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[3/*] The idea behind decentralized computing, and why it was so exciting, was that it offered an opportunity for people to bypass media authorities and communicate directly with each other.
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[4/*] People completely forget this today, but unmediated access to computers at that time was seen as a major benefit to people whose identities were unwelcome in the mainstream; because computers kept you anonymous, no one could know your race, gender, nationality, etc.
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[5/*] Having seen that potential, when I was growing up, I've always thought of computers as the place where people can escape from the demands of social conformity, whatever they happen to be in that era, and be who they actually are.
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[6/*] So you can perhaps imagine why it would seem shocking to someone like me when so many people clamor for faceless, unaccountable corporations to insert themselves into your life, and for them to exert control over what you can and can't say to each other and publicly.
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[7/*] But the thing I realized just today that was so depressing is _of course that's going to be true_. The reason it was that way in the first place was because the majority of people must have wanted it that way. Most people _don't_ want other people to be themselves.
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[8/*] If most people _wanted_ other people to be themselves and express themselves, our _mainstream_ media would have always reflected that! Why this was not obvious to me, I don't know.
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Replying to @cmuratori
That doesn't follow to me. Traditional media could only broadcast a finite number of channels, so it couldn't really reflect niche groups of people. And you can't criticize modern mainstream media as not reflecting niche people when by definition anything niche isn't mainstream.
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No, it is what the allowed range of discourse is. For example, if the default state of humanity was that people generally wanted to hear everything, you would not have this:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window …
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Replying to @cmuratori @The_Equationist
It is not about whether niche things are _reflected_. It's about whether niche things are _banned_, or shunned. Mainstream media doesn't just "not reflect" niche opinions - it actively denigrates or excludes them, which is different.
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