linux mint comes with a program coincidentally called Hexchat for connecting to IRC networks. Are these obsolete at this point, or are there still places to hang out with people so i dont have to use discord?

  • ShmoneyShmillions [none/use name]
    ·
    2 years ago

    IRCs are good backup news channels. The news broke about Desert Storm on IRCs way before any news outlet got a hold of any information. With how the commonly traveled internet is increasingly based on AWS/Cloudflare, having an IRC is a nice just-in-case

    • Presents [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Yeah, I remember the first live news event that happened on IRC was when the Olympic park in Atlanta was bombed. It was crazy, a couple hundred people all putting new details into chat.

      And then the media blamed that hero security guard who found the device and prevented it from killing more people. He was everything they hated, spoke with a southern accent, lived with his mother. They lied and lied and said he did it. Turned out, it was a white supremacist who spent the next couple of years hiding out in the woods and was caught raiding a dumpster for food. Good job, media.

        • Wertheimer [any]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Yeah, Eric Robert Rudolph was the real bomber. He had also bombed abortion clinics.

        • Presents [none/use name]
          ·
          2 years ago

          I can't remember if that was the real reason or that was the disinformation the media spread about the hero. That's the problem with these lies: they stick. Most people today still think the security guard was the terrorist.

          • Wertheimer [any]
            ·
            2 years ago

            I dunno, there was a Richard Jewell movie a few years ago. Eastwood directed it so it was probably chuddier than it needed to be, but Paul Walter Hauser's a good actor and looked perfect for the part. I didn't see it but I do know that there are plenty of people in Atlanta who very much remember the way the Atlanta Journal-Constitution fucked his life up.

            • Presents [none/use name]
              ·
              2 years ago

              That movie was a flop and nobody watched it. Jewell is still widely regarded as a skeezy loser weirdo.