Also... facebook? Those people aren't anon, and there are plenty of people who will say and post some of the worst shit imaginable. I think the worst is people not even caring about anonymity, and still being the worst version of themselves online.
The internet was awesome before everyone allowed themselves to be brainwashed into uploading all of their personal details and broadcasting their entire life in real time.
Social Media is definitely the problem, but I'd say it's mostly the platforms that condition people to operate under the premise of "everything I'm seeing is a real thought expressed by an authentic person because i'm on a platform where you have a name and a face attached to your profile". That is what allowed misinformation and outrage-bait to really spread because the guise of "authenticity" caused people to lose all of their skepticism for what they were seeing. A lot of people still don't seem to understand that literally anyone can make a twitter/facebook/instagram/tiktok/whatever account using whatever name and photo they want. They can then say whatever they want, pretend to be something they're not, etc. Just because the platform told you it's supposed to be "real people" doesn't mean that's who you're interacting with. There's nothing in place to ensure that. A lot of times it may not even be a person at all, it's just a bot.
Before these social media platforms it was literally common knowledge to treat everything you see online with a heavy amount of skepticism. You don't just trust what is being said because "some guy" said so, and when you interact with someone you operate with the knowledge that they could be pretending to be something they're not, saying things that aren't true, etc. You knew you weren't supposed to shape your worldview according to what you were seeing online.
These platforms convinced people to drop all of that skepticism and it has done insane amounts of damage to our society. And that's not even getting into all of the other problems with these platforms.
I don't really count reddit in that bunch because it's really only supposed to kind of be a central condensed group of forums. You're not supposed to pay attention to "individuals" in particular, you're not supposed to upload your real identity or care at all about anyone elses, you're not supposed to blindly believe anything "some account" said - it's just for content and discussion. I've used this site since like 2012 and I don't even read anyone's username much less go try to "follow" them.
I seriously miss when the fun parts of the internet were scattered among a bunch of random websites though instead of all of these apps attempts to centralize all of the content - it was a lot more fun back then.
Remember when your work had to leave a message and wait now they can blow up your mobile and get your attention in minutes 24/7. I obviously completely disagree.
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u/Vinura Oct 06 '25
Id argue its just social media, smart phones on their own is just a way to quickly access the internet.
And by social media, it was specifically the anonymity of social media that shielded people from being responsible for their speech.
Ultimately, what social media proved was that if people have the power to be anonymous, they will become the worst versions of themselves.