Comment on How Big Tech Killed Online Debate
schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 1 week ago
Similar thoughts here: slatestarcodex.com/…/new-atheism-the-godlessness-…
Particularly interesting is this comment:
One really interesting addition to me is that the early internet was a very, VERY free speech place. It loved Gish Gallops of enormous numbers of arguments from all sides and the idea that you would tell anyone, even the most foolish, that they should be banned was verboten.
In fact, early atheists loved creationists posting! It gave them content because these people were so obviously wrong. And creationists the same, because it allowed them to fight back too.
The modern deplatforming support on both sides is another sign that that era is gone.
adespoton@lemmy.ca 1 week ago
This might be romanticizing the early Internet.
I can remember plenty of flame wars in the late 80s and early 90s that were all about shutting down meaningful discussion. Informed debate flourished in niche areas, but it still does today, in a similar volume. What’s changed is the massive volume of social media that’s grown up around it, including many types of voices that were in short supply on the Internet in 1989, and many of which are uneducated and/or tribal in nature.