from the if-there-is-too-much-shouting-on-the-internet,-REMOVE-THE-CAPS-LOCK-KEY dept.
50 Years After Internet Conception, Dark Side Stirs Fear:
On October 29, 1969, professor Leonard Kleinrock and a team at the University of California at Los Angeles got a computer to "talk" to a machine in what is now known as Silicon Valley.
The event gave birth to a network that later became known as the internet—hailed at first as a boon to equality and enlightenment, but with a dark side that has emerged as well.
As UCLA marks the anniversary, Kleinrock is opening a new lab devoted to all things related to the internet—particularly mitigating some of its unintended consequences on the internet which is now used by some four billion people worldwide.
"To some point it democratizes everyone," Kleinrock told AFP.
"But it is also a perfect formula for the dark side, as we have learned."
So much is shouted online that moderate voices are drowned out and extreme viewpoints are amplified, spewing hate, misinformation and abuse, he contended.
"As engineers, we were not thinking in terms of nasty behavior," said Kleinrock, 85.
"I totally missed the social networking side. I was thinking about people talking to computers or computers talking to computers, not people talking to people."
The new Connection Lab will welcome research on topics including machine learning, social networking, blockchain and the internet of things, with an eye toward thwarting online evils.
[...] While marking its 50th anniversary, the internet as we know it is a "rowdy teenager" in the eyes of Internet Society chief technology officer Olaf Kolkman.
"The internet has done more good than harm," Kolkman said.
"The biggest challenge we have in front of us is that while we cope with big problems enabled by global connectivity that we don't throw the baby out with the bath water."
(Score: 5, Informative) by FatPhil on Monday October 14 2019, @11:27AM (7 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14 2019, @11:45AM (3 children)
Mispronouncing Aloha like your post suggests is a violent and racist cultural appropriation. Even your username Phil approximates a common American male. A white male attempting to filter our gaze through the activities of men, erode every aspect of sovereignty, and make the reader an unwitting participant to hegemony. I expected this from spongebob but not here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14 2019, @12:16PM
#CANCEL_PHIL
We got RMS, we can get this one too!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14 2019, @12:59PM
It's raciss every time a non-white (or "person of colour") uses a flush toilet.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14 2019, @04:35PM
-1 fuckittery
Order some of these stickers, put one on your keyboard, and obey the sign! https://tradiemayhem.com/shop/stickers/not-to-be-operated-by-fuckwits/ [tradiemayhem.com]
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday October 15 2019, @07:03AM (2 children)
And before either of those Unix had write. All the way back in 1971.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Unix#Versions
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday October 15 2019, @06:34PM (1 child)
But those still require the source and destination computers to be on the same network, or be layered on top of some internetworking protocol, right? The ideal behind ARPANET was that it was different networks being tied together.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1) by Arik on Wednesday October 16 2019, @04:40AM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MostCynical on Monday October 14 2019, @11:33AM (3 children)
Newspapers, radio, the telephone and television have all enabled mass communication.
People have been mean to each other for as long as there has been speach.
The issue isn't the technology, it is people, and technology isn't going to fix what is wrong with people.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 14 2019, @04:38PM (2 children)
Not even if you nuke 'em from orbit? ;^)
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday October 14 2019, @10:20PM
You still run the risk of undesirable elements ... surviving ...
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 15 2019, @02:34PM
Nuking people from orbit is the best way to get rid of mean people.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14 2019, @11:38AM (3 children)
What a great quote ++funny. I suppose my first exposure was BBS in the eighties, so it seemed natural to think people comms, even if they were disembodied ethereal avatars som 15 years into the tech line.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday October 14 2019, @12:14PM (2 children)
Yeah, my fist exposure was email and usenet in the early 80s. The only computer to computer communication was exchanging email and usenet messages.
Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14 2019, @02:29PM
I know you're afraid ArmInAss, but my son, this is just a step on the long road to becoming a real GayNigger.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 15 2019, @02:37PM
Usenet was the early warning of what happens when people can anonymously spread toxic messages around the world.
No wonder it was the fertile soil for the birth of spam.
And alternate facts.
But how I miss rec.humor.funny with its original moderator.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Monday October 14 2019, @11:57AM (2 children)
"research on topics including machine learning, social networking, blockchain and the internet of things"
So, pretty much any damned thing.
"with an eye toward thwarting online evils"
Evil as defined by...who? This guy is talking specifically about person-to-person communications, so any attempt to "thwart online evils" is likely to amount to some kind of censorship. We already have plenty of groups trying to censor the internet - I'm not so sure we need more.
As far as "evil" behavior goes: Who is old enough to remember when email first started being used a lot? Initially, people were bloody rude - after all, they were yelling at their computers, and they forgot that there was a real, live human being who was ultimately going to receive and read their email. That problem as pretty much sorted itself. The vast majority of emails I receive are perfectly polite, because people have learned how to use the tool.
Even online communities - the ones I frequent are increasingly polite. Even on places like reddit. The internet is growing up.
Are there places populated by trolls and idiots? Sure there are. There are also parts of my local city where idiots hang out. Don't go there, it's as simple as that.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Monday October 14 2019, @03:35PM
"Are there places populated by trolls and idiots? Sure there are. There are also parts of my local city where idiots hang out. Don't go there, it's as simple as that."
You must be joking, taking personal responsibility instead of some government making rules. Mainly to keep the precious little children safe. Can you not think of the children and how all adults must be regulated for their safety so the little snowflakes never have to experience anything but positive feedback telling them how unique and precious they are.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 3, Interesting) by meustrus on Monday October 14 2019, @06:39PM
I'm pretty sure you're not part of a demographic that becomes the target of abuse in those communities. Yeah, they grow up and start seeing you as a person. But that doesn't mean they see the black lesbian as a person, too.
Censorship would be an extremely expensive and inefficient solution. It's what social media are trying to perfect right now (they call it "moderation"). And it's not working.
What we need are more tools to enable us to steer clear of the bad parts of town. Right now, there's one Twitter, and there's no good way to keep the drive-by assholes in one place so I can ignore them.
The real problem isn't about what people say. It's about how we discover them. Right now, content discovery happens at a platform level because the financial incentive is to grab people's attention and keep it where the platform can profit from it.
That content discovery system is ALWAYS going to have problems with trolls, idiots, and scammers. It is too juicy of a centralized target. Because of its monopolistic nature, users can't route around the damage. The platform needs to figure out how to do that for the user, while keeping their attention and not making too many people mad about being called "damage".
There is no solution without breaking the platform. Each social network just has too much financial incentive to keep their content discovery a closed loop. We need to reject Twitter's content discovery system, and YouTube's, and Facebook's, and instead use an open system.
Perhaps straight-up URL sharing through word of mouth. Why not?
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14 2019, @12:31PM (5 children)
Im convinced that Web browsing jumped the shark when money became the predominant motivating factor for websites.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by EEMac on Monday October 14 2019, @01:39PM (1 child)
One of my long-standing favorite comments, by kaszz:
[Before 1993, the internet was better because it didn't have:]
* Trolls - had kill lists
* Lawyers - couldn't figure many bits out. They just lacked any worthwhile imagination.
* Profiteers - didn't get it, nor did they have any workable business model
* Government - Considered it not important enough.
So the early internet was kind of free from many crap people.
http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?threshold=0&highlightthresh=0&mode=improvedthreaded&commentsort=0&op=Change&sid=7499#post_comment [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday October 15 2019, @02:40PM
Another great thing about the early internet is that the complexity of getting it on your personal computer was a barrier to entry to the stupid.
But sadly not to the evil or insane. Stupid is orthogonal to those, on a different axis or dimension.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rupert Pupnick on Monday October 14 2019, @09:32PM (1 child)
One of the surest ways to screw up a new and exciting development in tech is to “monetize it.” Indisputably true of the Internet.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 15 2019, @02:42PM
DannyB's corollary: Advertising destroys every medium it ever touches.
It always has. It always will.
Fundamental principle: Every vendor or con artist in the world trying to get your personal attention does not scale.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday October 15 2019, @06:50AM
It's *advertising.* Advertising has destroyed every medium it touches, the web is only the latest.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday October 14 2019, @12:47PM (1 child)
I like how something is 50 years old and still a rowdy teenager ... By that standard I'm still a child. Whooooooo!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14 2019, @02:11PM
Uh oh. Age is nothing but a number? Identify as a child?
That's the CP Deep Hole Web talking.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Monday October 14 2019, @01:43PM (3 children)
So what? It's worse when those extreme voices control the mass media outlets. Then the situation is reversed. The "shouting" online would be the only places people like him could speak.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14 2019, @02:12PM (1 child)
The phrase "fence sitters" comes to mind.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Monday October 14 2019, @02:49PM
It's basically a tech shop selling a story to the fundraisers. The potential funders probably little know or care about the overall mission of the Lab, but "thwarting online evils" gets their attention.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Monday October 14 2019, @06:48PM
Are you suggesting we don't have extremist-controlled mass media too? Or that our mass media used to involve less shouting and identity politics than it does now?
I guess that would explain Reagan. But it doesn't explain Trump (or HRC).
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday October 14 2019, @02:27PM (1 child)
devices with proprietary, backoor bits? not a problem!
obsolete business models kept alive by patents and copyright, while the real economy gets nuked by retail and online giants? not a problem!
anonymous guy saying "i wanna hurt mr x" probably paid to make mr x the topic of the day? NOW THIS IS A PROBLEM WE NEED TO CENSOR
wrong dark side, kid.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by meustrus on Monday October 14 2019, @06:45PM
In what universe are threats more likely a scheme for attention than just threats? This site is news for nerds, so I'm guessing you're a nerd too. I doubt you paid your bullies to steal your lunch money just so you could get more of that sweet sweet attention.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14 2019, @03:01PM
Big democratized bullyinggg.
So the lab is going to use the AI to fight meanies on social media. That fight is well underway. What's next? Killing the dark side. I mean dark web. Authenticate every bully.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by linkdude64 on Monday October 14 2019, @04:07PM
That's the problem that you communists have with it.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday October 14 2019, @10:24PM
Democratization isn't the solution. More Canuckization [theloop.ca] of the Internet is what we really need.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 15 2019, @04:59PM (1 child)
i always thought that anything that needed your personal information, email and/or phone number to get login credentials to t he "net" was on the dark side.
so the "modern" internet isn't so much different then using a computer at the academia facility at the time ...
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday October 16 2019, @07:56AM
Amazon couldn't become a possibility until our culture was destroyed.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?