alt Hacker NewsOne personal observation, the early commercial internet as it was transitioning from universities/research labs/certain high-tech firms into a mass market thing with millions of users, it had its share of nutjobs and crazy as well. But it was boutique, hand crafted , personal level crazy and it was for the most part disregarded because none of the whackjobs could collect a sufficient following or megaphone to spread their message.
For instance in about 1994 I remember coming across a set of textfiles that were some lengthy manifesto about how the US government had supposedly manufactured AIDS in a lab somewhere. But it never got any traction.
Now we have the unfortunate venn diagram overlap between something like a Tate and a major social media platform, and he can get his message out to millions of angry, horny, unemployed young men...
Replies
> For instance in about 1994 I remember coming across a set of textfiles that were some lengthy manifesto about how the US government had supposedly manufactured AIDS in a lab somewhere. But it never got any traction.
There was a BBS in my area that ran on a small bank of 14.4 USR modems that had a gold mine of content like that. It was such a fun time.
> how the US government had supposedly manufactured AIDS in a lab somewhere
This was Soviet (now Russian) disinformation. The tactic is to make people (especially Americans) distrust the American government. Like claiming that the crack epidemic was caused by CIA inventing/smuggling the drugs in. Sure, Oliver North & Reagan's Iran-Contra affair did this to fund Ronnie's illegal and private war in Nicaragua. The CIA gets all the money they want from a willing, subservient Congress - they don't need to smuggle drugs. Congress specifically outlawed supplying weapons to the Contras, so the administration had to resort to illegal means, like selling weapons to Iran and smuggling drugs to finance that war.
This is the same sort of disinformation as saying COVID was manufactured in a Chinese labs, somewhere in Wuhan.
Yeah, I used to read this stuff when I was younger and more gullible.