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Veteran author and longtime Silicon Valley resident Andrew Keen has stepped up his criticisms of the Internet. Describing the net as a platform that has devolved from its initial ideals and promise into a vehicle of monopolistic, manipulative and exploitative practices, a Guardian article summarizes views now gaining traction. By using Amazon, Google, Facebook, Airbnb, Uber or any other online giant, are we striking a Faustian pact, behind which lays a mass of suffering, surveillance and ruthless harvesting?
Keen supports his arguments by mentioning that even online businesses that cite individual collaboration, those of the 'sharing' economy, are mere cynical fronts for firms already valued in the billions. As money has been sucked out of retail, transportation, photography, research and other industries into the coffers of new Internet giants, the net result has been losses of jobs and the compromise of working conditions. As for the Internet's much-touted 'individual empowerment', Keen counters with the rise of mob mentality - “Rather than creating more democracy, it’s empowering the rule of the mob. Rather than encouraging tolerance, it’s unleashed such a distasteful war on women that many no longer feel welcome on the network". Keen's book - The Internet is not the Answer - is, a touch ironically, available on Amazon.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 10 2015, @08:52PM
You never need to tell people your gender or post pictures of yourself. You'll still get insults, but they're just insults. Stop taking everything so personally. Stop posting mundane details of your life online. People never walk up to random strangers and tell them everything about themselves, so why do they think doing it online is somehow better?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 10 2015, @08:58PM
Because it's easy to pretend that faceless individual on the other side of the screen is whatever we want them to be. A friend, a confidant, someone who cares, a lover, it doesn't matter.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 10 2015, @08:59PM
You must be a woman, now shut the f*** up and let the men handle this.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 10 2015, @09:40PM
You never need to tell people your gender or post pictures of yourself.
Pretty much this. A lot of folks will assume you're a guy, but what does it matter?
I also don't understand why so many girls don't know where the /ignore is at… or expect 4chan to be somehow not 4chan.
Maybe I'm just not playing the right video games or going the right places, because the internet doesn't seem to be a hostile place for me at least.
I can think of a few names recently that have been in a few headlines, and I'm certain in those cases they were being harassed and threatened not because of anything between their legs. I'm pretty sure if I got on global chat on a MUD that appealed mostly to guys and started calling “all men” immature misogynists who couldn't get laid, then that might become a hostile place for me. Or maybe I'd just get banned and leave it at that instead of going to Twitter to turn it into a sob story.
(Score: 2) by Tramii on Tuesday February 10 2015, @10:46PM
It's probably because a lot of people (men and women) actually *care* about what random strangers thing about them. I don't get this either, but it certainly seems to be the case. People get upset when other people don't like them or disagree with their ideas. Some of us are able to tune out the noise, but a lot of people never learned to do so. It certainly doesn't help that our current society seems hellbent on trying to keep everyone's feelings from getting hurt.
Honestly, it doesn't matter what gender, race, creed, religion, etc you are. There is someone out there that hates you, and they are willing to let you know in no uncertain terms. You can cry and whine about how unfair it is, or you can learn to ignore it. No, it doesn't make it right. No, I'm not excusing it. If you want to waste your time crying about and and shouting how unfair it is, go ahead. But ultimately, the only way to keep it from damaging/ruining your life it to learn to accept it and let it go. You will never make everyone nice. Never in a million years.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 10 2015, @11:56PM
> No, I'm not excusing it. If you want to waste your time crying about and and shouting how unfair it is, go ahead.
Hey, crying about it and shouting how unfair it is is my *business model*, you insensitive clod !
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @12:34AM
+1 sad but true
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by GeminiDomino on Wednesday February 11 2015, @01:23AM
Please go away, Ms. Sarkeesian.
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @02:16PM