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270 points ilamont | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.221s | source
1. qndreoi ◴[] No.21977216[source]
In Neal Stephenson's "Fall, or Dodge in Hell", a woman becomes a victim of organized online harassment. The harassers keep repeating the same accusation. She has a rich tech friend who invents "Organized Proxies for Execration" or APEs that overwhelm the internet with huge volumes of contradictory messages. As the inventor says: "-why, even the most credulous user will be inoculated with so many differing, and in many cases contradictory, characterizations as to raise doubts in their minds as to the veracity of any one characterization, and hence the reliability of the Miasma as a whole." Here "Miasma" is Stephenson's word for the cesspool that is social networks. The strategy works more or less for the victim, but (spoiler) has unintended consequences.