RE: Finding the Authentic Web

If you want to find the authentic web, you’ve got to think independently.

Brandon seems to feel that the web is, a bit untrustworthy these days. He’s not wrong, if your definition of the web includes corporate websites, social media, and streaming platforms — all of which are full of machine-generated slop from LLMs feeding off each other like an inhuman centipede. Mine doesn’t; as far as I’m concerned, the personal and non-commercial web is the web; the various names it’s been given — indie web, small web, personal web, etc. — are bad framing. It’s the commercial and corporate web and social media — including the Fediverse — that we should be othering, instead of permitting ourselves to be othered.

It probably doesn’t help that I first listened to Queensrÿche’s 1988 rock opera, Operation: Mindcrime, as a man young enough to mistake these lyrics for a profound revelation: 

I used to trust the media to tell me the truth, tell us the truth
But now I’ve seen the payoffs everywhere I look
Who do you trust when everyone’s a crook?

Brandon, meanwhile, is still thinking in terms of how to identify sites that aren’t part of the crappy side of the web. The furthest he’s gotten is some kind of certification or badge, but bogs down on the question of who can be trusted to issue said certifications. Which is another phrasing of what seems to be the fundamental question in all human social relations: who should have power over others? My answer is “nobody", which I suppose is a rather anarchist answer, and probably not one that would satisfy Brandon.

But that’s OK. He wasn’t asking me, so I’m under no obligation to give him a satisfactory answer. Nor am I confident that it’s possible to give Brandon an answer that would satisfy him.

What Brandon seems to want is for the matter of vetting websites and identifying sites worthy of his time and attention to become somebody else’s problem. He wants somebody to do the thinking for him, because in this case thinking for himself is more burdensome than he’d like. This mentality is why we still have platforms like Facebook; people want the Internet, an inherently unsafe medium, to be made safe.

What does it mean to make the Internet safe? First, should we not ask, for whom should the internet be made “safe"? Safe for children? Safe for corporations? Safe for advertisers? Safe for nation-states?

Suppose we go with “safe for children” for the sake of the argument. Who gets to decide what constitutes “safe for children"? You wouldn’t want to trust me with that authority; I’d ban non-factual advertising entirely — alleged free-speech rights of corporations be damned — while allowing sites like Literotica and paywalled video porn sites like Ersties and XConfessions. (PornHub, however, can eat the corn out of my shit; they were happy to host revenge porn and material made by performers under duress until forced to inspect the shit people were uploading to their platform.) Yes, I would rather that children be exposed to pornography than advertising. Kids need to learn, early on, that fucking is good and natural. Learning the same about commerce can wait a bit.

Do you see where I’m going with this? Brandon seems to want the Internet to be policed, but every effort to do so proves that all cops are bastards. Every successful effort to police the Internet brings it closer to being a medium akin to cable TV, yet another one-way broadcasting system where an annointed few talk at the masses, who are not permitted to talk back except via tightly constrained channels.

Furthermore, suppose such a certification authority were to inspect my website? Perhaps they might find nothing objectionable, and issue me a badge of approval. I would most likely suggest that they use it as the sort of impromptu sex toy that would prompt a visit to the emergency room and get them written up in yet another “69 Weird Things ER Docs Pull Out of Patients’ Butts” article on BuzzFeed — after such an article is first rejected by The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine.

After all, why should I trust the people vetting my website? Whose interests are they serving? They don’t necessarily have my best interests in mind, even as one of many competing interests that they must balance as fairly as humanly possible. So, who’s watching the watchmen? Who’s watching the people watching the watchmen? Is it spooks and cops all the way down instead of turtles?

What if I don’t consent to be policed by the sort of people Brandon would like to trust to decide which websites are “authentic"? If I wanted my exercise of the fundamental human right to freedom of expression to be subject to non-governmental authority I could still be on Mastodon, or some godawful “social” platform run by people like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, or fucking Steve Huffman — the sort of overprivileged denizens of the Uncanny Valley that John Carpenter tried to warn us about when he directed They Live in 1988. Why should I give an organization that verifies the authenticity of personal websites free advertising by displaying their seal of approval on my website? ’Cause you know damned well they’ve got to pay the bills somehow, which means they need a revenue stream. What’s to stop such an organization from demanding that website operators pay to be vetted? That’s a protection racket waiting to happen.

Incidentally, what’s the difference between the government and organized crime? The former uses propaganda to manufacture consent so that it can retain its monopoly on “legitimate” uses of violence.

Getting back to the subject: If you want to know who to trust, start with a mirror. Trust the authority of your own senses above all other authorities. If a website gives you the ick, there’s probably a reason for that. But you’ve got to figure that out for yourself.

You don’t have to know anything about art as long as you know what you like, but you won’t get there by letting others think on your behalf. You’re going to make mistakes, but that’s just the human condition. Learn from your mistakes and try to make new ones instead of repeating familiar ones. It’s the only way to sharpen your own discernment, let alone cultivate your own taste.

Trusting other people to decide if a website is authentic is like walking into a church, a military recruting office, or a job interview looking for a sense of purpose. There’s no shortage of people who will tell you what you want to hear, but they don’t have your best interests in mind. Neither do I, but I’m willing to tell you so.

Why do I say this? I don’t need my website to be certified as “authentic". Nor do I need you to “trust” me. I’m up front about who I am and what I do on this website. I make no secret of my biases or lack of expertise. My website is for entertainment purposes only, and nothing posted here is factual unless independently verified. If you are not entertained, then go elsewhere and be damned to you. You’ll see payoffs everywhere you look, but I’m not one of the crooks because the only payoff I get for running this website is emotional, rather than financial. After all, self-actualization doesn’t pay the bills; that’s why I have a day job.

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