Compuserve was not very political in the few years around 1990. There was reddit-tier tone-policing, with the difference that two genders and america-1st was mainstream. Gay LAPD was in some sort of quarantaine, sexy talk or nudes got you kicked out. The latter changed when the competition built a dollar-empire on it, so they had to change. I remember prodigy-ads alluding to hook-ups, and I think it was AOL with an ad sporting a stud of a cowboy with a moustache like a 70s' bike handle bar and the caption "On AOL I can live my inner girl" or something like that. When I returned to CS' "CB-simulator" (chat) during a lazy summer with lazy friends in 1995, mores had deteriorated to the point that polite conversation without getting interrupted by "m or f" (male or female) was hard to come by. Most dialogue before that was either completely boring, very technical or fascinated with the medium itself, like talking about the weather and time of day in various parts of the world. That was very expensive outside the U.S. and cost a thousand dollars a month in phone- or "C-TEL" fees. Building a political following online was completely unheard of at the time.
Perhaps "The Well", a silicon valley/Bay Area celeb online service, would have been a MUCH more attractive target for shills, and probably was, but I missed that. (Fucked up, backwards europe with phone-lines to the US costing US 1.50 per minute in 1990s money).
The only shilling I remember on usenet were people who tried to draw attention to asperger's syndrome, then a completely blind spot, even for doctors. The arguments and evidence was sound and interesting for affected people, but the proponents went ballistic on sceptical questions and stalked and spammed me for a week or so trying to convince me, as if it were a cult. Very weird for 90s people.
Compuserve was not very political in the few years around 1990. There was reddit-tier tone-policing, with the difference that two genders and america-1st was mainstream. Gay LAPD was in some sort of quarantaine, sexy talk or nudes got you kicked out. The latter changed when the competition built a dollar-empire on it, so they had to change. I remember prodigy-ads alluding to hook-ups, and I think it was AOL with an ad sporting a stud of a cowboy with a moustache like a 70s' bike handle bar and the caption "On AOL I can live my inner girl" or something like that. When I returned to CS' "CB-simulator" (chat) during a lazy summer with lazy friends in 1995, mores had deteriorated to the point that polite conversation without getting interrupted by "m or f" (male or female) was hard to come by. Most dialogue before that was either completely boring, very technical or fascinated with the medium itself, like talking about the weather and time of day in various parts of the world. That was very expensive outside the U.S. and cost a thousand dollars a month in phone- or "C-TEL" fees. Building a political following online was completely unheard of at the time.
Perhaps "The Well", a silicon valley/Bay Area celeb online service, would have been a MUCH more attractive target for shills, and probably was, but I missed that. (Fucked up, backwards europe with phone-lines to the US costing US 1.50 per minute in 1990s money).
The only shilling I remember on usenet were people who tried to draw attention to asperger's syndrome, then a completely blind spot, even for doctors. The arguments and evidence was sound and interesting for affected people, but the proponents went ballistic on sceptical questions and stalked and spammed me for a week or so trying to convince me, as if it were a cult. Very weird for 90s people.
? want to know more
This is interesting, and I like the name "the mad truther", but is it related to 90s online life? Just asking because I missed it.
At any rate, this is a huge problem. I will show that to antisemitic friends who are computer-illiterate to various degrees.