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A comment on Tim Burton: The internet makes me quite depressed. Parent comment

Re:Tim Burton: The internet makes me quite depressed by tombert on Thursday October 24, 2024 @03:11PM (#41938687)
I know that's what everyone says, what I'm saying is that I'm not sure I agree. I mostly think it just made old problems more visible. At the risk of upsetting Godwin, if you look at the rise to power in Nazi Germany, Hitler was able to appeal to people's inner prejudices and susceptibility to demagoguery and commit one of the worst, if not the worst, atrocities in human history.

Hitler didn't post radical content on Facebook or Twitter or Reddit, he just spoke publicly about stuff.

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Re:Tim Burton: The internet makes me quite depressed by MisterTea on Thursday October 24, 2024 @03:38PM (#41938954)
> Hitler didn't post radical content on Facebook or Twitter or Reddit, he just spoke publicly about stuff.

That's what social media allows random people to do much more easily: speak publicly about stuff. Before that you'd have to build a reputation and following in meat space which takes a lot of time and effort. Now it's just a like and share button.

I'm sure Hitler would have totally loved using Twitter, Facebook and the like.

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Re:Tim Burton: The internet makes me quite depressed by jemmyw on Thursday October 24, 2024 @04:16PM (#41939293)
But then Hitler would have to compete with a million other Hitlers
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Re:Tim Burton: The internet makes me quite depressed by croes on Thursday October 24, 2024 @05:08PM (#41939802)
Or they simply join forces
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Re:Tim Burton: The internet makes me quite depressed by eesmith on Friday October 25, 2024 @05:15AM (#41943566)
> That's what social media allows random people to do much more easily: speak publicly about stuff.

GeoCities let you speak publicly about stuff, so that alone is an incomplete characterization.

What nearly all social media does is preferentially bias message propagation to boost engagement in order to enhance advertising sales and biases of its owner(s). This tends to amplify drama and stoke rivalry.

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