What is the history of the internet?

India Pakistan Relations: What would be the consequences of long-term internet based interactions between people with a history of conflict?

• I ask this question because the information age has brought us into an unprecedented height of boundary less interactions on the internet. While in the last millennium, propaganda of nations helped shape people's views of the world. People can now just find out for themselves rather than follow the rhetoric. In specifics : Indians and Pakistanis on every forum seem (except Quora, thankfully) seem to throw filth at each other.. people to people. For Example: YouTube videos comment battleground, Facebook and twitter forums. Extremists find a juvenile audience that is ready to give attention and engage on the unregulated web space. Increasingly, our view of the world is being shaped by what we see, listen or read on the internet. Also, how does social interaction over the internet affect others peoples / places with a history of strife : Palestinians/ Israelis, Indonesians/Timorese, Taiwanese / Chinese etc.

• Answer:

  One of my experiences is that a lot of these conflicts spill over into internet games like Mafia Wars and Poker If you do play Poker you will certainly soon be made aware of Ethnic conflicts  between Turks and Armenians. Or Cyprus. Mafia Wars has Mafia Wars Israel (MWI) is permanently at war with Mafia Wars Palestine (MWP) as in real life MWI is backed by various right wing American groups (Conservative Patriot Mafia) etc. A lot of these are people letting off steam and rather childish trolling, but it does highlight the hatred. Anyone who tries to be reasonable is shouted down. The most racist site I have ever seen (using the P word) was an Indian site on Pakistan. I think the number of people who visit these sites is rather small. The propaganda is usually extreme. The internet does give you a chance to speak from people from many backgrounds and get a view from witnesses to conflict. I generally avoid the trolling: it is most likely just to be disruptive and annoying. I do find that rumours can travel pretty speedily and even some well meaning petitions have massive assumptions. (Petitions like stop Turks having sex with animals have appeared in my inbox. I think people mixing is likely to do more good than harm, because at least  people interact as people and not vague demons. Shouting at eachother via an internet connection is a lot better than planting bombs. The whole point with propaganda is it has to be relentless, so internet propaganda is a lot harder to manage. People can always find other sources of information Hopefully engagement will lead to some understanding: in any conflict most people just want to live normal lives. I don't think communication will lead to world peace, but the politicians haven;t exactly made a success of things.