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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8708034" data-attributes="member: 4937">Maybe.I feel like this narrative is pushed by the same people that believe the narrative: "Back in the 1940's, 1950's, and 1960's, the American press was intellectual, fair, and balanced... but then the Fire Nation attacked!"  And I know that narrative to be a myth.The thing is fringe groups have always been able to find each other and organize.  I think about the secret society of students in Hugo's Les Mis, meeting in the pub and plotting revolution, or in a less fictional case the early Suffragettes organizing in 19th century America.  The thing about 'fringe' groups whatever their cause is they are willing to put in that work to find others that share their beliefs, whether we find those beliefs abhorrent or laudable.  I don't feel this is really out of place in a conversation in the Roman empire about heretics.  "It's so easy for the Arians to get together these days what with the roads and the messenger services!  Back in my day the heretics had to be in hiding..."  What's most different in the age of the internet is that you don't have to put in as much work to find them, and different fringe groups are far more aware of each other for the same reason than ever before.  And so I feel like the whole "internet sea change" narrative boils down to, "The fringe groups that are my enemies are more organized than ever before!" and I'm not sure that's the case.  It's just easier to peak over the fence and see what the other side is doing.  Maybe it is in fact harder to keep the gates shut and keep people from intruding in the Communist Knitting Circle that was planning the deaths of all the anti-revolutionary forces and avoid being mocked for it, or whatever, but that's what you get for planning your revolution online.</blockquote>

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