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Old internet was absolute anarchy and it was better for it. There was a lot of fucked up shit out there but there werent algorithms manipulating you, sites tracking you, and purposely trying to sow discord for engagement. It was a more like a marketplace with a seedy section that you could visit if you were brave/stupid but you could happily just chill on your niche RC airplane forum if you wanted. The modern internet is more like a pushy used car salesman following you around telling you where to look and a cop following you around too.
Rather than banning social media for kids, we should be banning sites from implementing algorithms on them and tracking them. Frabkly, I'd like to see that for everyone, but its an easier political sell to protect kids from the predatory practices.
I remember the old internet as a refuge from the real world where I could be a sensitive nerd and I wouldn't get bullied for it. Cutting off access to outside ideas and communities for youth is a mistake. It also breaks any semblance of anonimity on the internet; how do you do age verification without having to upload an ID?
The old internet still exists. DIY websites and usenet groups and people with shitty opinion blogs continue to populate the space. https://slashdot.org/ still exists. Fucking 4chan.org still exists. I think you can even find goats.ex if its not entirely blacklisted by everyone by now.
But finding them is increasingly difficult simply because so much of the modern OS and native search environment are stuffed with hyper-advertised heavy hitters and spam.
The EU has had some mixed success with this approach, but largely because so much of the tech sector (and its attendant lobbying power) is concentrated in the US rather than Brussels. As soon as folks start getting paid off, the regulatory environment evaporates.
The smaller social hubs on Discord and Mastadon (and Hexbear and Lemmy) still absolutely let you do that. Hell, you can find it on the niche communities and groups of Reddit and Facebook, if that's still your jam. Bluesky is also very small and niche right now, so you can have a good time over there for at least the moment.
But a lot of that is building a relationship with a handful of other consistent users. The sheer volume of people and content on the bigger sites (combined with the endless bot swarms and marketing goons) makes everyone a faceless voice in the fog.
That leads us to John Gabrield's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory
I don't have comments on the rest of your post, but I absolutely hate how that cartoon has been used by people to justify that they are otherwise "good" people who are simply assholes on the internet.
The rebuttal is this: This person, in real life, chose to go on the internet and be a "total fuckwad". It's not that adding anonymity changed something about them, they were the fuckwads to begin with, but with a much lower chance of having to be held accountable, they are free to express it.
Ha! Imagine using that as a defense.
There's an argument that the internet just draws this out of you, because of your insatiable desire for attention. And the comic is a warning to check yourself before you wreck yourself.
But I cannot imagine the dipshit with cajones large enough to claim being an asshole online proves you're not an asshole in real life. Incredible.