zlacker

>>pimter+(OP)
This might be where the internet really gets forked, as it's been predicted over and over since the '90s.

On one side, we'll have a "clean", authority-sanctioned "corpweb", where everyone is ID'ed to the wazoo; on the other, a more casual "greynet" galaxy of porn and decentralized communities will likely emerge, once all tinkerers get pushed out of corpnet. It could be an interesting opportunity to reboot a few long-lost dreams.

>>toyg+Za
Internet anarchists getting excited about the prospect of forking the Internet feels a lot like when a lot of preppers got excited about the potential breakdown of society when Covid hit.

“Finally I can put all my skills to the test, which people have been teasing me about for so long.”

In both cases, this attitude has the problem that they ignore the vast majority of people who would suffer under the new order. Very few people would find their way out of the corporate walled gardens and into the free information superhighway.

>>Jolter+lh
It's a bit sad that a "daytime hacker, night time musician" from Sweden sees "internet anarchists" as something of a slur. I guess punk really is dead.

Besides, it's not about being excited as much as trying to find silver linings in a rapidly deteriorating environment.

>>toyg+Dp
Maybe your last sentence was more about some form of nostalgia for a long-lost decentralized Internet than excitedness?

I can certainly sympathize, but I think the best path forward for any anarchist would be to fight the attestation initiatives fiercely, rather than to resign and say “maybe we could have a good web again if we start over fresh”.

That aside, I’m not sure what you are saying with that comment about myself. I don’t think it serves the discussion.

>>Jolter+6u
I didn't define myself as an anarchist, you labelled me as such and drew some unflattering connotations to the term. Generally speaking, I don't deal in false dichotomies anyway. I was just saying that this could be the long-predicted inflection point.

>>toyg+eD
Nostradamus has a lot of predictions we are still waiting on, that is to say, your perceived inflection point may never come.

More likely is a bifurcation of the internet between West and BRICS, which is already partially in place

>>verdve+ZU
> your perceived inflection point may never come.

Absolutely. Smarter people than me have predicted it at various points over the last 30 years, and it has yet come to fully pass. We are seeing pieces coming slowly together, though.

> More likely is a bifurcation of the internet between West and BRICS

You are using BRICS very liberally here - I don't think Brazil is particularly internet-hostile, and South Africans have more important issues to think about.

Is there a movement towards a more balcanized network? Absolutely - most European countries now have individual DNS blacklists (the UK one is basically at full discretion of an opaque paralegal entity that answers to no-one); Turkey, Iran, and every other Middle-Eastern or South-Asian country (including Israel, India, Pakistan) can and do shut down their networks whenever they see fit; China have had their Great Firewall since Day 1; and Russia, well, they do what Putin likes to do on any given day.

None of that is particularly new though, it's just the usual autocratic crap. Corpweb will be much more cyberpunk.