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Re:The User Always Loses by astura on Saturday September 05, 2020 @10:09AM (#24383641)
Not only is myopic and US-centered, it's just plain non-factual, LiveJournal really took off pre-9/11. Around 2000-2001 literally everyone in my friend group were on LJ (except me), and not just passively/occasionally - regular active users and always talking about LJ stuff IRL. Even people who didn't have a computer at home! It seemed like it was just as much a social network as it was a publishing platform.

According to Wikipedia LiveJournal had to implement an invite-only system for new users because they were growing faster than the server architecture could handle. This was all started pre-9/11.

That being said, I didn't hear the word "blog" until the year 2003.

Beyond that I don't recall the Iraq War being a major blogging topic. Sure, everyone has an opinion on the Iraq War, but how many blog posts can the average person actually write about their feelings on the Iraq War? Can't be more than a few, not a topic that's going to keep the masses activity blogging.

To say blogging was a "shared response" to the invasion of Iraq is just... bizarre.

Re:The User Always Loses by techer on Saturday September 05, 2020 @10:36AM (#24383831)
Maybe vaguely referring to Salam Pax.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salam_Pax

Iraqi blogger.

Re:The User Always Loses by astura on Saturday September 05, 2020 @01:55PM (#24385480)
The claim was not "there was several popular blogs that dealt with the topic of the Iraq War." The quote in full

>Why did blogging take off as a shared response to the US invasion of Iraq? (When “the Internet became an ideal valve to release opinions,” she writes, “who didn’t have an opinion on the Iraq war?”)

Basically claiming that blogging became popular because everyone wanted to share their opinion on the Iraq War. That's just not factual and, quite frankly, ridiculous.

Re:The User Always Loses by MultusSalus on Saturday September 05, 2020 @04:17PM (#24386552)
> how many blog posts can the average person write about their feelings on the Iraq War?

A books worth: http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/deepdish/ebooks/i-was-wrong/

Re:The User Always Loses by astura on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @06:57AM (#24407178)
We are talking about the masses of Average Joes here.