All the talk of identity verification got me thinking about what I’ll actually worry about my kids accessing. Perhaps I’m odd, but sex is normal and porn is just exaggerated sex so I feel like I can make it clear it’s as realistic as Lord of the Rings.
What worries me is the brainrot from getting stuck in a media bubble. We are so incredibly vulnerable to being swayed by both propaganda and fringe thinking these days and it’s only easier to create echo chambers with all the AI content flooding the web now.
What do you think is the most dangerous part of the net for those ignorant of the threats?
Other people covered the sneakily harmful stuff that’s publicly accepted. I’m still gonna say 4chan. I assume it’s still up. I like to think I grew out of it or that I had a good filter as a teen, but I’m sure it negatively affected my views at least for some time. But half of the evil shit just seemed funny. You can’t tell who is serious and who is trolling because they’re all in the same thread together, feeding equally. So now I’m occasionally reminded of the actual death, mutilation, and harm I saw there.
I don’t know what other boards are similar and active. I don’t know what other modernized sites have joined that niche. I’m aware regular social platforms push harmful conspiracy and fringe theories and create their own spiraling echo chambers. 4chan is still a terrible place.
Damn, I just went on /b/ for the first time in like 20 years. It’s as terrible as it ever was.
I might be off on the details, but about a year ago, the founder lost control of the site and it went down. He called all the users terrible people. Someone else picked it up and continued within like a week. Interesting take on the founder/long term operator.
Forgot to mention there’s the epstein connection to /pol/. Insane.
So yeah, it’s not just echo chambers. There’s plenty of accessible terrible places still around.