this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
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The biggest problem with the internet isn't even bad actors, it's people who legitimately believe they're doing the right thing.
I disagree.
That dream of the internet was killed by the apathy of its users. It doesn't matter if you have almost the entire knowledge base of humanity at your literal fingertips if you can't be bothered to actually use it to learn anything.
I don't think that's true. I spend most of my time on the internet learning and my boomer mom who is only on Facebook, is mostly on the same page as me most of the time.
The biggest issue is that information isn't free to flow organically anymore, but now silicon valley tech bros decide what you can and can't see. We need total transparency how information flows in social media.
But as I see it their monopoly is slowly crumbling. So things will get better sooner or later. They have already massively improved compared to just a few years ago anyway.
There was always someone deciding what the public did or didn't see, it's just a different someone now.
The difference is with the internet you have the ability to instantly verify information, but most choose not to and instead just let their information be served. Its not that black and white, but most people are gonna believe what's served to them without much question, especially if it reinforces a bias.
This is missing a lot of nuance. Let's face it, verifying information on the Internet is not only a learned skill, it also takes time to do, particularly when it's the latest news with very limited available information.
Granted, we are usually talking about 10-30 minutes of time, depending on what you're verifying. But let's not pretend it's instant or even necessarily easy. There's a lot of information to sift through, and if you aren't practiced in spotting misinformation (and even sometimes if you are) you won't know to reject some of it off hand.
I don't blame people for not knowing they should verify news. I do blame people who believe everything they want to hear, and none of what they don't.