For me, it was that the Internet never forgets and that you should never enter your real name. In my opinion, both of these rules are now completely ignored.
"Don't believe everything you read on the internet." -Abraham Lincoln
Social media, a gorilla getting shot, two US elections, and GenAI later, we have completely fallen off this one simple rule.
On the Internet I grew up on, pretty much anything was ok except to discuss (or even speculate about) the real-world identities of users who didn't very openly disclose them.
Now many people think the latter is ok.
Gmail is super annoying at this, there is no way to automatically turn this off. I just have to delete the ellipsis every damn time
I think it's fine for email, better even. Unless there's a list of questions or something. In forums and lemmy I don't see it at all.
I was taught to cite websites by using the date the page was updated. Now I'm lucky if web pages even have a date on them.
Either that, or the page says that it's been updated in the last month, but the content is about how to connect to the World Wide Web '(WWW)' with a free AOL floppy disc
I can’t remember. Did it make pterodactyl noises or is that just faxes?
you really think someone would do that? go on the internet and tell lies?
Don't feed the trolls
but then I post on lemmy.world and get so so many repliesI remember being taught in school to apply source criticism, and that seems to have largely died as a concept.
This was back in the early 2000s...
"Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory" was both a lie (typically invoked to defend/justify bigotry, bullying, and such) and it also served to normalize people being assholes on the internet. "Perfectly well adjusted wholesome ordinary people chant nazi slogans when they log onto the internet, for real guys! It says nothing about their character as people because for some magical reason the internet totally has no connections to lived human experiences!"
Show
I'm glad that the so-called rule fell out of use and the excuse rings very hollow for most people now. Also, I noticed that many "ironic asshole" comedians and entertainers from the "le epic trolling" era wound up being actual assholes that hurt people outside of the act. "Million Dollar Extreme" and Justin Roiland come to mind.
