The internet

British people are on the whole very trusting.  They are not very skeptical.  That's the main reason the country is in such a state in my view.

Peter said:

fear about violent crime (especially towards kids) even though statistically it's going down,

https://punchng.com/the-rise-of-online-paedophilia/

According to the 2021 Global Threat Assessment report published by WeProtect Global Alliance, the scale of child sexual exploitation and abuse online is increasing at such a rapid rate that a step change is urgently required in the global response to create safe online environments for children.

A decade old:

https://www.wired.com/2014/12/80-percent-dark-web-visits-relate-pedophilia-study-finds/

80% !!!

https://news.npcc.police.uk/releases/vkpp-launch-national-analysis-of-police-recorded-child-sexual-abuse-and-exploitation-csae-crimes-report-2022

I think one of the biggest causes in childrens lives is the car, when I was a child, (somewhere back in the mists of time) children played outside in the street, it was expected and normal, you'd always get someone complaining about the noise or something, but everyone ignored them. Sometime in the 80's cars became more common and the streets cluttered with parked cars leaving little space to play, of course people starting driving faster too and children weren't so welcome on the streets.

There have always been predators, I remember being flashed at in the park when I was a child, we ran after the bloke throwing sticks and stones at him. What most people still don't want to think about is that most predators are people known to the victims and trusted.

I disagree about political correctness being a cause of harm, do we really want to go back to when we would of been called invalid, put into care, our parents told to forget about us, to not have the opportunities we have. To go back to times when 'No Dogs. No Blacks and No Irish' were legitimate signs to have on your hotel, B&B or pub? Do we want to go back to times when DV was wasn't even paid lip service to as a problem?

I'm glad I'm not the only person who recognises the enshitification of the internet, whenever I've mentioned it before I've either been ignored or told off.

Humans have a tendency to look back at the past and see some sort of golden age when things were better, when actually they weren't, we tend to look back at the between the wars era as a golden age, convieniently forgetting the depression and the Jarrow marches, or we look to the post war period as a golden age, an age when women were forced out of the work place and into the home, communities were broken up by slum clearances and the air quality was so poor people literally couldn't breathe.

Unknown said:

However, it facilitates crimes to a rather horrendous level.

I mean so does the post. and the telephone. Mail fraud used to be a big thing before the internet as telephones fraud is still an issue, especially for the elderly. Terrorists use the phone and letters to arrange their activities. People send letters stuffed with bombs or anthrax. Poison pen letters were a thing. I'm sure back in the day someone said the post or the phone was ruining society.

Unknown said:

It also isolates people and childhood appears to have drastically changed because of it.

Childhoods have drastically changed but I don't think the internet is chifley to blame. Bullying for example isn't new. It's just moved online like lots of other things. It wouldn't disappear if the internet did. People have isolated each other because of social changes beyond the internet. The workplace has become less social, possibly a side effect of a more litigious and politically correct society. People move about more for work and study which makes it harder for them to put down roots and maintain long term face to face social networks, That's really more a product of economic forces and globalisation.

Children these days are much more supervised in real life because the average parent has been scared into thinking under every rock is a dirty old man in a trench coat about to run off with their child under their arm. Ultimately on some level kids can't have full social lives without some autonomy. Unless the adults get lost and let them spend time some unsupervised with their peers.

The internet itself has changed though. It's become less social. Partly this is driven by enshittification (look it up) but also the boggy man that cyber stalking has become. Because ultimately all active attempts to get to know someone new can seem like stalking or harassment if cast in the wrong light, and people have become hyper sensitive to this.

I mean people actually worry these days about employers checking their social media for controversial things. The issue is not that controversial opinions / activities are out there for all to see but rather employers care in the first place. Because fundamentally people should be hired for their skills not their views or personal hobbies.

These are things driven by social changes. Political correctness, the erosion of the work / personal life divide, fear about violent crime (especially towards kids) even though statistically it's going down, globalisation, geographical mobility, generally increasing levels of financial instability, a more litigious society etc.

Yes and no! Like so many things - it’s not binary. I think the way it connects autistic people on here for example is so wonderful. I adore YouTube. Having said that personally I feel fortunate to have had my childhood in a pre-internet age - it was simpler and I had time to daydream and play outside in nature so much. The internet is a mixed blessing. Also - I now feel I would really struggle if I ‘lost’ access to the internet- I feel a bit dependent on it. So that’s an issue, because it’s not entirely in our control to always have access to it. I’m very glad to also have access to the books on my shelves - in case one day I can only access those and not the internet. And it definitely steals so much of my time! And keeps me up late at night! 

TheCatWoman said:

I think that schools have failed many people in not teaching them how to use sources of information and evaluate them

Spot on.

I guess I was lucky at school. I remember very few moments from class, but there was one lesson - I think it may have been "General Studies" - where we were given copies of newspaper cuttings covering the same story from different angles. I think I was naturally pretty skeptical, but that encouraged me further. Never looked back really.

The problem is finding sources that are trust worthy, I think that schools have failed many people in not teaching them how to use sources of information and evaluate them. I think people have a tendency to believe the first thing they read and then disregard anything to the contrary. I don't think it matters if its the internet or the British Library or pub gossip, if people don't know how to challenge, ask questions of questions etc then they're going to be vulnerable. Especially to dubious health claims for products and services, ill people are desperate and will often try almost anything, if they're lucky it will work, most likely they're wasting money, but if they're unlucky the treatments they purchase will make them worse and theres little or no come back on the snake oil pedlers.

The current power structures in most western nations now have all the power and they are using their power for evil, as we have seen gradually come in since the 1960’s and even more so since Covid - they are far more inclined to use draconian powers for their benefit alone, not ours, as they hate and despise us and they are not even bothering to hide it any more - being pro-life myself, I find it totally bizarre that in a historically Catholic country like Ireland, they have perfectly legal abortions up to birth under current Irish laws, even more so than the U.K. - only recently, a plan by the globalist elites was revealed to “cull” all over 30’s in 2030 “to curb overpopulation” and Keir Starmer, a devotee of the WEF, has even talked about similar in relation to elderly people - at age 53 myself, this is hugely concerning 

Draconian laws are great when we personally agree with them or benefit from them. Thank god we no longer have them when it comes to, say, the allowed gender of who we can fall in love with.

I suppose like everything is has it's positives and negatives.

This very site and all the good it brings is one such positive.

The fact that a bad person can try to use this site to convince a desperate person to give personal details in the hope of getting a loan is one such negative.

I do think that social media should be banned, as well as “dating” apps like Grindr 

When the internet and mobile phones first came out, my grandparents generation were totally opposed to them and they questioned why people were being given unfettered access to it (aside from the costs involved) without having to prove to a police seargent or a court of law before a judge and jury why they needed it for a specific purpose, without a licence being granted for a certain time under strict conditions and without close monitoring and supervision - on balance, many decades later, I reluctantly welcome things like digital ID’s and other online safety laws, even though I have concerns about online privacy on free speech online - it is a certainty that the Chinese style social credit system will come in, in the next few years as it cannot be stopped - in my experience, most people cannot be trusted to act responsibly and they have to be made to do stuff by force of law and by strong and draconian laws being passed and the enforcement has to be draconian without exception nor excuse 

Can you provide some real world examples of people being silenced please?

If I worked as a bus driver then I may have a cognitive bias towards thinking driving buses was a worthwhile thing. But that wouldn't prove that it was a good thing.

It's a tough say. I think as a society we weren't mature enough for the internet when it arrived. But it coming the way it did, and it staying such an untamed frontier for as long as it had, allowed young generations to become more familiar with it than the ones that created it. Now the rising youth can be made more aware than ever of the faults with society that the rest of us were kept ignorant to.

We're just... still very immature about what we do with it all. Many more concerned with covering everything in bubble wrap, publicly shaming differences or opinion, or worst of all, bringing about the passing of legislation that gives the government the power to censor the people. I really believe the control freaks and workaholics among those working in politics can hardly believe their luck at how eager many of us have been to beg them to silence us.

Account abandoned said:

Used to go into a shop for information. Now inaccurate information online.

Not sure I can agree with that - there is loads of accurate info if you use trusted sources.

Unfortunately there are loads of interested parties pumping out intentional disinformation (think Russia / China in their attempts to destabalise the "West") and heaps of peope who have little clue but profess themselves an expert where they have few skills and little knowledge (some people offering advice on here for example - some good, some bad).

I've been using the internet since it first became useful (back in the 90s) and working in IT I used it a lot so can say with confidence that it is net positive by a long way.

Forget social media - that is full op people and their stupid attempts to get likes as well as loads of idiots fighting over politics, opinions, sports teams / players etc. We are better off without it.

There is a wealth of material to consume (books, comics, magazines, TV shows, films etc) over on archive.org and a number of other resources such as Libgen, so entertainment for life can be found there.

For those of us who hate to go out and need to speak to people about stuff (in shops etc) then it is a godsend.

Library for information about transport, places, newspapers and magazines. Now everything is online. 

Basic tv channels which was ideal and now it's too much choice.

Writing letters to pen pals as the postage cost was 21p. Now it's expensive. Cheap way is to use email or social media/WhatsApp. 

Used to go into a shop for information. Now inaccurate information online.

Local charity/thrift shop used to have the telephone box for the main office. 

In a nutshell. 

I think humans are in a political environment that has left them on the edge of extinction.   Because of nuclear proliferation  and  impending environmental catastrophe.  Whether the internet has helped that along or not is a question. But it certainly hasn't stopped it.

It may be that the internet has been a negative. I think this is probably the case. It might be that the internet is neutral and we'd have been in the same spot without it.   It might be that the internet ends up being a positive in that it  empowers us to improve our situation and survive as a species.

Unknown said:

What are you meaning/including in 'internet'? The Google definition is kinda confusing

Anything you can do 'online' via an internet browser.

What are you meaning/including in 'internet'? The Google definition is kinda confusing