Why have forums *including this one and similar types* have morphed into news links and news bots now hindering all discussion?

submitted by [deleted] from self.AskSaidIt

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[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Because they want people to get frustrated with the internet and stop using it. People were banding together and finding out things in common. So they poison the well with thousands of bots and shills, so everyone gets upset and learns nothing. Thus regaining control over their communication network, like they had with TV. Unfortunately the only working response to this is to create a walled garden forum, but that also implies a high degree of censorship, which is antithetical to uncovering taboo information.

So it's kind of this weird lose-lose situation and no one has figured out a solution yet. And it's only going to get worse as bots get better at seeming human. The internet will be 95% bots in probably 10 years. It's probably 50% on a lot of forums already.

It's honestly a disaster for humanity because a lot of people mistakenly think it's real, and a real reflection of how humanity thinks and acts, but it's fake. And it makes people depressed, disconnected, and despondent to see this and think it's real. Which is also useful to those in power, because if these attitudes are held deeply by the populace, it disables people from wanting to change the world because they think it's useless.

Seems offline communities will be the way of the future as the internet becomes increasingly poisoned by bad actors that are nearly-impossible to defend against. Video content is more likely to be real than text content these days, but even that will come to an end as deepfakes and video editing improves. In real life you can at least verify you're talking to a flesh-and-blood human being.

[–]portace 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Unfortunately the only working response to this is to create a walled garden forum, but that also implies a high degree of censorship, which is antithetical to uncovering taboo information.

This was actually China's solution. After they opened up in the 1970's/1980's, they found out that foreign intelligence was promoting propaganda and directing speech. So they reinstated censorship, which has issues as it can be abused by the ones controlling the internet and/or have ethical/philosophical concerns.

The internet will be 95% bots in probably 10 years. It's probably 50% on a lot of forums already.

I think it's part bots part astroturfs.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah it's part bots part astroturfs for sure. Probably 40% real users, 30% bots, and 30% shills/paid/astroturf user accounts.

The downside to what China has done is that they get in an information bubble, and begin to make mistakes because they don't have access to unbiased (or differently-biased) information. So they develop a narrow worldview that hinders them in many ways.