The Internet Is Bad For You

The Daily Beast ^ | Andrew Keen

[steve-b]

...I fear that one element in Obama's well-intentioned infrastructure plan—his goal of providing all Americans with broadband Internet access—might one day be seen as inadvertently laying the foundations for a return to fascism, the political catastrophe of the 1930's....

The 1930s fascists were expert at using all the most technologically sophisticated communications technologies—the cinema, radio, newspapers, advertising—to spew their destructive, hate-filled message. What they excelled at was removing the the traditional middlemen like religion, media, and politics, and using these modern technologies of mass communications to speak with reassuring familiarity to the disorientated masses.

Imagine if today's radically unregulated Internet, with its absence of fact checkers and editorial gatekeepers, had existed back then. Imagine that universal broadband had been available to enable the unemployed to read the latest conspiracy theories about the Great Crash on the blogosphere. Imagine the FDR-baiting, Hitler-loving Father Charles Coughlin, equipped with his “personalized” YouTube channel, able, at a click of a button, to distribute his racist message to the suffering masses. Or imagine a marketing genius like the Nazi chief propagandist Josef Goebbels managing a viral social network of anti-Semites....

Silicon Valley utopians argue that blaming the Internet for online hatred is like blaming Johannes Gutenberg, the 15th century inventor of the moveable type printing press, for Mein Kampf. And that's true, of course. Yet given the way in which we know that the unfiltered Internet spreads corrosive lies and inflames prejudice, why would we want to give all Americans universal broadband access at the very moment when millions of them will be unemployed, disorientated and angry? Rather than spending billions of dollars in telecom technology, wouldn't it be better to invest that money in local libraries and librarians, where their education could be supervised by accountable human beings....

[Anti-Bubba182]

The Net would be harder to control than Radio.

[AliVeritas]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_C992KPzKs

They already have the media scrub down pat.

[Riodacat]

Or imagine a marketing genius like the Nazi chief propagandist Josef Goebbels managing a viral social network of anti-Semites....

The "marketing geniuses" (Rush, Hannity, etc) are all on our side.. Who do they have?

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Without the ability to censor the opposing side, I don’t see how this could happen.

It works in TV and print because the left successfully censored the right out of the picture, while they still pretend they didn’t.

[BenLurkin]

Or imagine a marketing genius like the Nazi chief propagandist Josef Goebbels managing a viral social network of anti-Semites....

You mean -- like the Democrat Underground?

[cetarist]

that ain’t fair! those folks are sort of slow.

[Steamburg]

ROFLAMO. The tool of the tools is turning on them.

[SolidWood]

Imagine if today's radically unregulated Internet, with its absence of fact checkers and editorial gatekeepers, had existed back then. Imagine that universal broadband had been available to enable the unemployed to read the latest conspiracy theories about the Great Crash on the blogosphere. Imagine the FDR-baiting, Hitler-loving Father Charles Coughlin, equipped with his “personalized” YouTube channel, able, at a click of a button, to distribute his racist message to the suffering masses. Or imagine a marketing genius like the Nazi chief propagandist Josef Goebbels managing a viral social network of anti-Semites....

BULL! BULL! BULL! The author couldn't be further off mark. REGULATED internet is a threat. The unregulated internet is a powerful weapon for those who fight fascism, government control and censorship. Has it ever come into his mind that it could have been also used to expose Hitler, Coughlin or FDR, for that matter?

The internet, together with (if not more than) talkradi are the last bastions of dissident thought.

Of course it's easier to justify censorship by portraying the "evil internetz" as heirs of Hitler. What a load...

[Prokopton]

It works in TV and print because the left successfully censored the right out of the picture, while they still pretend they didn’t.

They didn't censor anything they just put their money where their principles were and took over the means of propaganda. The right obviously didn't think it important to control mass communication and spent their money elsewhere. NYT and most every other MSM propaganda arm is for sale. Capitalism, You want to be heard you buy the microphone.

[Oldpuppymax]

So the internet “...spreads corrosive lies and inflames prejudice...” The MSM has been doing that for decades! When will it’s influence be questioned/banned?

[mvpel]

I'm struck practically speechless by this article and the layers of condescending claptrap and outright falsehoods it spreads.

Imagine if today's radically unregulated Internet, with its absence of fact checkers and editorial gatekeepers, had existed back then.

Absence of fact-checkers? What does he call Free Republic, Drudge Report, Atlas Shrugged, etc? Far from being "no" fact checkers, there's tens of millions of fact-checkers, working 24x7.

When the "Editorial Gatekeepers" are at the heel of the totalitarians, and only totalitarian-approved messages can be disseminated, that's when there's disaster brewing, not when there are no editorial gatekeepers at all.

How far would the Dan Ra^ther forgery have gotten if the only "fact checkers" were CBS employees and the "Editorial Gatekeeper" were Dan Ra^ther himself?

[MaxMax]

censored the right out of the picture, while they still pretend they didn’t.

I disagree, the MSM only distorted and promoted all that was bad with the
republican party. The Repubs got plenty of press coverage. All negative.

[SolidWood]

Fascism has returned, and it bears the face of Andrew Keen.

[MAexile]

Imagine if today's radically unregulated Internet, with its absence of fact checkers and editorial gatekeepers, had existed back then.

Absence of fact checkers?

Perhaps we should retell the story of the Texas National Guard documents and the effect that an absence of fact checkers had on Dan Rather and CBS News.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Imagine if today's radically unregulated Internet, with its absence of fact checkers and editorial gatekeepers, had existed back then. Imagine that universal broadband had been available to enable the unemployed to read the latest conspiracy theories about the Great Crash on the blogosphere. Imagine the FDR-baiting, Hitler-loving Father Charles Coughlin, equipped with his “personalized” YouTube channel, able, at a click of a button, to distribute his racist message to the suffering masses. Or imagine a marketing genius like the Nazi chief propagandist Josef Goebbels managing a viral social network of anti-Semites....

Imagine if any person back then had been able to immediately publish their opposition to any of these things - Nazism might never have gotten beyond a few Munich beer halls. The Internet is not radio, television or newspaper. It does not exist to broadcast the views of a precious few elites. Any of us can use it to combat views we oppose, to espouse and publicize views we champion. The Internet enables the ordinary citizen to gather information, to make informed choices, and to make his/her views known as no tool ever has before.

[Reeses]

Global warming is a hate-filled message: hate towards capitalism and all its wealth. If it wasn't for the internet few of us would be able to study and counter it or even know just how many others have figured out it's a scam. If all we had was the old MSM we would be powerless to disseminate the other side of the story. The left looks warily at the internet for having this anti-central-authority power.

[mvpel]

The author couldn't be further off mark. REGULATED internet is a threat.

Damn right.

"Regulated" media, like in Russia, where my great-grandfather-in-law ran a secret printing press, in defiance of the "regulations" of Tzar Nicholas.

Likewise, the Soviets not only engaged in outright censorship but also closely regulated the distribution of paper and printing ink, in an indirect approach to censorship.

[DieHard the Hunter]

> REGULATED internet is a threat. The unregulated internet is a powerful weapon for those who fight fascism, government control and censorship.

I don’t think the Internet is going to stay unregulated very much longer. It already has much more regulation than we ever envisaged.

When I first signed on in the late 1970’s it was unheard of to send anyone an email unless it was short and terse and to somebody who you knew. The thought of soliciting business was anathema: if you tried to use the Internet for business purposes you would get “mail bombed”. It wasn’t a very good idea to send business solicitations to hundreds of unknown people: you would get “mail-bombed” back into the stone age and would be never allowed to sign on again: your operator would make sure of that!

Now we have Spam, and we have Anti-Spam laws — and they are enforced. We have laws on content, and we have the perfectly ridiculous concept of “Copyright” being enforced on on-line content.

The Internet, like everything else, will be regulated. Ultimately, the one thing that makes it a cool technology — it’s lack of regulation — will entirely disappear.

Count on it.

[Cheerio]

The "marketing geniuses" (Rush, Hannity, etc) are all on our side.

The Government doesn't have to "market" they can just jam it down our throats like all things the Government imposes on us. Can't you envision zer0bama or piglosi pop-ups every time you go to a different site?

You are correct that am talkers are great "marketeers" but I don't think the Government with the resources behind it will need to market anything. And certainly they already have the resources to snoop on your every keystroke. I see Josef Goebbels already on the scene - maybe I am just paranoid, but with this crew in DC we have no hope. ALL IS LOST, we need to institute an intelligence test about how Government works before voting in a Federal election. We cannot recover from this cultist following ZER0BAMA has. You, I, and other posters on FR are a very small minority left in America that believe impact on house bills. Over in the Senate we have Reid acting like a King and refusing to seat a properly appointed IL Senator, but encouraging the tax-cheating pornographer to come to DC and be seated. The nuclear option will be pushed through by Reid so the GOP looses it's ability to filibuster, because the RAT could not steal their way to 60 seats. It is over for the GOP. Blame whomever you want, but once this crew is established it will be for life, and they will do everything they can to make sure it continues that way. After all it is the democRAT party's birthright to rule over us little people. /sarc