I also strongly recommend you to read From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network and the Rise of Digital Utopianism by Fred Turner [0] together with What the Dormouse Said. The two books are really an eye-opener and revealed how everything connected together.
> Or more simply, we’re experiencing the “disruption” of computing that was promised. This is not a value judgment: there are tons of good outcomes of this and there are bad outcomes as well. And what’s a “good” outcome vs a “bad” one is going to be highly subjective and debated ad infinitum.
Yes! Recently, David Perell wrote an excellent 13,000 word essay, "What the Hell is Going On?" [1], which examines and analyzes the current chaos in politics, business and education, and concluded that it was caused by the transformation from a information-deficient to a information-rich society, and part of the article has a similar argument just like mine.
It's interesting to see that the personal computing and the Internet was envisioned by our pioneers as an open, peer-to-peer, decentralized structure, and they hope to bring the world to a freer and more egalitarian future (Cyber-utopianism). They were the people who laid out the crucial groundwork of everything (PC, Web, microchips, crypto, etc) throughout the 70s.
In the 80s, this Cyber-utopianism evolved into Cyberdelic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberdelic) and cyberpunk, computer was seen as the new LSD. The cyberpunks of the 1980s and 1990s embraced technology and the hacker ethics. They believed that the Internet could help human beings overcome limits, liberating us from authority (crypto-anarchism) and even enabling us to transcend space, time, and body (transhumanism).
Later, a group of entrepreneurs absorbed this idealism (see the early Wired magazine, it was fascinating!) and transformed it into the Californian Ideology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology) and created the dotCom bubble in the 90s, finally bringing us to the present world.
But if we compare the original vision to the web dominated by Silicon Valley today, one would say that the Valley already betrayed this vision at large. What the FAANG empire have claimed to do, is not what they were/are actually doing. (On the bright side, the Free Software Movement succeed, and the Electronics Frontier Foundation is still going strong, but both with little influence compared to the megacorps.)
What happened?
Ideologically speaking, the most straightforward explanation is that the idealism has been sold out to corporations and capitalism for profit. I think this idea is fine and it can explain a lot, but this is a cliche and there's enough criticisms based on this approach that one could found online, so I will stop here and explain it from other perspectives.
Technologically speaking, the whole thing didn't come without warnings from the inside. The first warning came in 1984, from the Free Software Movement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_movement), it said the objectives of cyber-utopianism is only attainable if the software running on a computer grants freedoms to users, otherwise it would create a dystopia instead; The second warning came from the Cypherpunks Movement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypherpunk) in the late 80s, it said objectives of cyber-utopianism is only attainable if the computer and network systems are explicitly designed to preserve the security and privacy of the users by utilizing cryptography, otherwise it would create a dystopia instead; the third warning came in late 1990s, from Lawrence Lessig, the founder of the Creative Common movement. He wrote a book called "Code is Law" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_and_Other_Laws_of_Cybersp...), arguing the "cyberspace" doesn't automatically have the liberating properties by itself (envisioned by the original utopianist), but it was actually an effect created by the running code. Whoever controls the code can completely reshape the cyberspace and transform it to a dystopia instead, we must make sure that our democracy, freedom, human rights is coded properly into the computer programs, to achieve this, the government must enforce heavy regulations of the code and the Internet by passing strict laws. This is controversial, but he got the idea (the "cyberspace" doesn't automatically have the liberating properties by itself, we must implement them explicitly), just like the free software hackers or the Cypherpunks. But unfounately, neither solution has been implemented at a large scale.
Finally, I would try replying to the original question: why do we have a problem of "Fake News" newadays? I believe part of the answer is the limitation of all the elitism from the forementioned things. The ideology of the Internet, more or less, has an element of populism. People believed we could change the world by empowering the individuals by freeing computing powers from institutions to the people, and connect them via the Internet, eventually, we can create...
> a postpolitical, non-hierarchical society made possible by cyberware, in which the computer-literate, super-intelligent, open-minded, change-oriented, self-reliant, irreverent free-thinker is the norm and the person who is not internetted and does not think for him or herself and does not question authority is the "problem person".
And it looked pretty good: things appeared to be moving to this direction - the emergent of the Free Software Movement, the Cypherpunk Movement, and early online commmunities such as The WELL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WELL) or Usenet all seemed to prove this point. This was seen as the case even before 2010, when we had the Occupy Movement and The Arab Spring.
But it turns out,
1. It was the populism of the elites. Yes, they were revolutionary, they wanted to make the world a better place by digitizing the human society. Unfortunately, whoever was playing with computers and the Internet in the 1980s-1990s were elites. They have received extensive academic trainings, and/or came from the middle class. So the element of populism played a positive role, it bought us the free software movement, for example. But after all the people and all their dogs have been connected to the web, the same populism would stop playing the original positive role.
2. The development of the Internet was done in the beginning of globalization and the economic boom of 80s neoliberalism. From the 1980s to 2007, the world was following this trend, so there was no major social conflicts that contradicted the idealism of the Internet manifested itself through the web. When the middle east politics started getting destabilized, people celebrated because the revolution was liberal. There was even the "cute cat theory of digital activism", which says when there are funny memes involved, people are more likely to join the political protest of Internet freedom. And it was seen as a good thing - a faceless dictatorial government was overthrown by lolcat. Isn't it the miracle of the postmodern Internet?
But post-2010, this world order started to disintegrate. Now it's clear, that "The Internet is an inherently platform of democracy and equality, which empowered the individuals to be free from the establishment", this narrative from the 80s has been proven to be wishful thinking. This is when the entire thing started to get out of control.
Now it has been clear that ANY idea, can by popularized and supported by a free Internet. Now in the current age of deglobalization and political and economic failure, naturally, extreme post-truth and nationalistic ideas are getting more and more popular support, just like the Arab Spring, both was supported by a number of people who were frustrated by the status quo.
I guess this is how we suddenly got the "Fake News" in recent years. It was simply because the world politics created a big market of the reactionary populism, and the web is the best tool to sell it. It wasn't a significant problem because the market was not as big as today.
The grassroot nature of the Internet started to revolt against its own founding principle, democracy and equality, which made the grassroot nature of the Internet possible in the first place.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Turner_(author)
> Or more simply, we’re experiencing the “disruption” of computing that was promised. This is not a value judgment: there are tons of good outcomes of this and there are bad outcomes as well. And what’s a “good” outcome vs a “bad” one is going to be highly subjective and debated ad infinitum.
Yes! Recently, David Perell wrote an excellent 13,000 word essay, "What the Hell is Going On?" [1], which examines and analyzes the current chaos in politics, business and education, and concluded that it was caused by the transformation from a information-deficient to a information-rich society, and part of the article has a similar argument just like mine.
[1] https://www.perell.com/blog/what-the-hell-is-going-on
---
It's interesting to see that the personal computing and the Internet was envisioned by our pioneers as an open, peer-to-peer, decentralized structure, and they hope to bring the world to a freer and more egalitarian future (Cyber-utopianism). They were the people who laid out the crucial groundwork of everything (PC, Web, microchips, crypto, etc) throughout the 70s.
In the 80s, this Cyber-utopianism evolved into Cyberdelic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberdelic) and cyberpunk, computer was seen as the new LSD. The cyberpunks of the 1980s and 1990s embraced technology and the hacker ethics. They believed that the Internet could help human beings overcome limits, liberating us from authority (crypto-anarchism) and even enabling us to transcend space, time, and body (transhumanism).
Later, a group of entrepreneurs absorbed this idealism (see the early Wired magazine, it was fascinating!) and transformed it into the Californian Ideology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology) and created the dotCom bubble in the 90s, finally bringing us to the present world.
But if we compare the original vision to the web dominated by Silicon Valley today, one would say that the Valley already betrayed this vision at large. What the FAANG empire have claimed to do, is not what they were/are actually doing. (On the bright side, the Free Software Movement succeed, and the Electronics Frontier Foundation is still going strong, but both with little influence compared to the megacorps.)
What happened?
Ideologically speaking, the most straightforward explanation is that the idealism has been sold out to corporations and capitalism for profit. I think this idea is fine and it can explain a lot, but this is a cliche and there's enough criticisms based on this approach that one could found online, so I will stop here and explain it from other perspectives.
Technologically speaking, the whole thing didn't come without warnings from the inside. The first warning came in 1984, from the Free Software Movement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_movement), it said the objectives of cyber-utopianism is only attainable if the software running on a computer grants freedoms to users, otherwise it would create a dystopia instead; The second warning came from the Cypherpunks Movement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypherpunk) in the late 80s, it said objectives of cyber-utopianism is only attainable if the computer and network systems are explicitly designed to preserve the security and privacy of the users by utilizing cryptography, otherwise it would create a dystopia instead; the third warning came in late 1990s, from Lawrence Lessig, the founder of the Creative Common movement. He wrote a book called "Code is Law" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_and_Other_Laws_of_Cybersp...), arguing the "cyberspace" doesn't automatically have the liberating properties by itself (envisioned by the original utopianist), but it was actually an effect created by the running code. Whoever controls the code can completely reshape the cyberspace and transform it to a dystopia instead, we must make sure that our democracy, freedom, human rights is coded properly into the computer programs, to achieve this, the government must enforce heavy regulations of the code and the Internet by passing strict laws. This is controversial, but he got the idea (the "cyberspace" doesn't automatically have the liberating properties by itself, we must implement them explicitly), just like the free software hackers or the Cypherpunks. But unfounately, neither solution has been implemented at a large scale.
Finally, I would try replying to the original question: why do we have a problem of "Fake News" newadays? I believe part of the answer is the limitation of all the elitism from the forementioned things. The ideology of the Internet, more or less, has an element of populism. People believed we could change the world by empowering the individuals by freeing computing powers from institutions to the people, and connect them via the Internet, eventually, we can create...
> a postpolitical, non-hierarchical society made possible by cyberware, in which the computer-literate, super-intelligent, open-minded, change-oriented, self-reliant, irreverent free-thinker is the norm and the person who is not internetted and does not think for him or herself and does not question authority is the "problem person".
And it looked pretty good: things appeared to be moving to this direction - the emergent of the Free Software Movement, the Cypherpunk Movement, and early online commmunities such as The WELL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WELL) or Usenet all seemed to prove this point. This was seen as the case even before 2010, when we had the Occupy Movement and The Arab Spring.
But it turns out,
1. It was the populism of the elites. Yes, they were revolutionary, they wanted to make the world a better place by digitizing the human society. Unfortunately, whoever was playing with computers and the Internet in the 1980s-1990s were elites. They have received extensive academic trainings, and/or came from the middle class. So the element of populism played a positive role, it bought us the free software movement, for example. But after all the people and all their dogs have been connected to the web, the same populism would stop playing the original positive role.
2. The development of the Internet was done in the beginning of globalization and the economic boom of 80s neoliberalism. From the 1980s to 2007, the world was following this trend, so there was no major social conflicts that contradicted the idealism of the Internet manifested itself through the web. When the middle east politics started getting destabilized, people celebrated because the revolution was liberal. There was even the "cute cat theory of digital activism", which says when there are funny memes involved, people are more likely to join the political protest of Internet freedom. And it was seen as a good thing - a faceless dictatorial government was overthrown by lolcat. Isn't it the miracle of the postmodern Internet?
But post-2010, this world order started to disintegrate. Now it's clear, that "The Internet is an inherently platform of democracy and equality, which empowered the individuals to be free from the establishment", this narrative from the 80s has been proven to be wishful thinking. This is when the entire thing started to get out of control.
Now it has been clear that ANY idea, can by popularized and supported by a free Internet. Now in the current age of deglobalization and political and economic failure, naturally, extreme post-truth and nationalistic ideas are getting more and more popular support, just like the Arab Spring, both was supported by a number of people who were frustrated by the status quo.
I guess this is how we suddenly got the "Fake News" in recent years. It was simply because the world politics created a big market of the reactionary populism, and the web is the best tool to sell it. It wasn't a significant problem because the market was not as big as today.
The grassroot nature of the Internet started to revolt against its own founding principle, democracy and equality, which made the grassroot nature of the Internet possible in the first place.