History Main / NewMediaAreEvil

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNO6G4ApJQY This KTTV "Fox 11 News" "special report"]] purports to reveal the activities of a gang of "''[[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs hackers on steroids]]''" called Anonymous who destroy the lives of [=MySpace=] users, make death threats, and [[https://web.archive.org/web/20100925032926/http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Jake_Brahm threaten to blow up stadiums]]. In fact, the "anonymous" in question is simply the default login to most {{Imageboards}} (the so-called "secret websites" and "underground hacker sites"). The "report" includes a random clip of a truck blowing up, apparently as a "demonstration" (really MediaScaremongering). The "anonymous insider" is clearly in on the gag; note use of Website/FourChan catchphrases like "Anonymous does not forgive". The mention of "[[UltraSuperDeathGoreFestChainsawer3000 like a real-life video game]]" earns extra NewMediaAreEvil points -- such are the things that happen when a local news station doesn't know what they're getting into.

* Platform/YouTube content creators have started catching lots of flak in the late 2010s, starting with a ''Wall Street Journal'' article accusing LetsPlay/PewDiePie of promoting racism and bigotry due to a joke he made in one of his videos. As the years went on, the trend of news sites owned or funded by large corporations have been continually pumping out articles claiming that various famous and influential [=YouTubers=] or the [=YouTube=] recommendation algorithm have been radicalizing their viewers has grown significantly, to the point where they are now directly blaming [=YouTube=] itself for promoting such content, whether through recommendations or search results. Naturally, the accusations are coming from traditional news media and cable TV outlets, who see [=YouTube=] as direct competition since people are increasingly turning to independent content creators for entertainment.

* In Belgium, commercial television also had problems. When [[UsefulNotes/FlemishTVStations VTM]] was introduced the BRT tried to demonize it. The only reason why it still passed is that the minister of culture at the time stood firmly behind it. Oddly enough this time it was not because they allowed American programming, but because Belgian television critics feared that it would lead to television without quality, which was a realistic fear in the very first years that they made programming. Nowadays most critics would not fear it anymore though, because the fact they can win awards has stimulated them to make more quality programming.

** The 2023 [[UsefulNotes/UnionsInHollywood WGA and SAG-AFTRA]] [[UsefulNotes/TVStrikes Strikes]] were sparked in large part as a protest against Hollywood studios aggressively pushing for the use of AI in the entertainment industry. SAG-AFTRA in particular was incensed with the proposal to use AI to scan and own actors' likenesses forever.

* Website/{{Facebook}} is ''constantly'' being accused of stockpiling users' personal information for nefarious purposes. The paranoia increased tenfold after the company became publicly-traded due to people not knowing what that means, thinking the company is ''literally'' public, causing some uninformed users to post meaningless disclaimers that their info is private. Legality aside, the boring truth of the matter is that the only thing Facebook does with your info is use it to send you relevant advertisement, and even that is done by algorithm; Mark Zuckerberg is not leering at your spring break photos or stalking your every move.

* Website/YouTube content creators have started catching lots of flak in the late 2010s, starting with a ''Wall Street Journal'' article accusing LetsPlay/PewDiePie of promoting racism and bigotry due to a joke he made in one of his videos. As the years went on, the trend of news sites owned or funded by large corporations have been continually pumping out articles claiming that various famous and influential [=YouTubers=] or the [=YouTube=] recommendation algorithm have been radicalizing their viewers has grown significantly, to the point where they are now directly blaming [=YouTube=] itself for promoting such content, whether through recommendations or search results. Naturally, the accusations are coming from traditional news media and cable TV outlets, who see [=YouTube=] as direct competition since people are increasingly turning to independent content creators for entertainment.

* Played with in ''Series/BeingHumanUK''. Ivan mentions offhand that he can pass along messages to the other vampires in Bristol easily, because most of them follow his Twitter feed. A later episode has a vampire use Website/YouTube to distribute a video of Tom and George transforming into werewolves. [[spoiler:This backfires when the people who see the video chalk the whole thing up to special effects, and it completely fails to throw the human world into the panic he anticipated]]. On the other hand, that same vampire seems to consider new media as a potential tool humans have to stay connected and win against any vampire attacks ("If you try to attack them, they'll have an army together within minutes. Over ''Twitter''.") and his desire to take advantage of it is just his view that it's a powerful tool for anyone.

** Later still, being signed up to a Website/{{Facebook}} BlandNameProduct as part of a joke is what puts Mac back in touch with an old friend, who ends up being his LoveInterest (and occasional DamselInDistress) for the remainder of the series. Since the episode's plot involved a fake profile being used by woman to trick the victim (her soon-to-be-ex-husband) into having an "affair" (to use against him in the divorce), which indirectly lead to the murder (the victim saw through it, but jokingly said he'd have her killed so [[PoorCommunicationKills she took opportunity to murder him]] during the robbery at the start of the episode, [[spoiler: thinking she could frame the robbers - unfortunately it was staged by their daughter, who was sick of both of their crap]]) this was probably an attempt to avoid this trope.

* AI generated content has increasingly come under greater scrutiny in the public eye. Initially, it started of as simple chat bots that could only respond to human input with a series of preprogrammed responses. However, as technology further developed, chat bots had access to algorithms that allowed them to give more complex responses, sometimes even fooling people into thinking they were human. Soon, AI writers like [=ChatGPT=] were developed that could start writing prompts and eventually full blown essays, novels, scripts, and news articles. Naturally, once conversation begun that soon writers may be replaced by AI, there has been a massive backlash by people claiming that AI generated writing would mean the death of human creativity, with even more extreme actors claiming it's the next step in AI domination of humanity. A very obviously legitimate problem with these programs, like with smartphones in school buildings, is students using it to cheat on homework (or classwork, if they're audacious enough), as the work involved in going over the generated essay and correcting anything obviously wrong is much less work than researching and building an essay from the ground up. As a result of this, teachers have falsely accused students of using AI to do their homework by running it through a program that supposedly determines if it was written by AI, even if said program would flag the Declaration of Independence as such.

* UsefulNotes/ThomasEdison claimed that the UsefulNotes/RiseOfTheTalkies ruined cinema, arguing that, because screen actors had started concentrating on their voices, they'd forgotten how to act. By his logic, apparently the stage (which far predated film) had never produced any actors worth a damn.

** Hollywood's reaction to television was a panic attack, all but blaming TV for the then-in-progress UsefulNotes/FallOfTheStudioSystem. After the US government won a huge antitrust suit against the studios in 1948, the studios were forced to sell their theater chains, depriving them of a guaranteed outlet for {{B Movie}}s, [[WesternAnimation cartoons]] and other films that they though wouldn't sell tickets otherwise; by the end of the 1950s, the major studios, particularly Creator/{{Paramount}} and Creator/WarnerBros, had dumped huge amounts of their libraries to TV syndication companies, deciding they were of little value otherwise (the VCR was still decades away). On top of this, one of the now-liberated theater chains, United Paramount Theaters, merged with Creator/{{ABC}} in 1953. While Warner Bros. took this in stride and started producing for TV in the late 1950s, Paramount smarted over all of this for years, only begrudgingly producing the occasional MadeForTVMovie, and even had a hand in (trying to) kill the Creator/DuMont network by way of their ownership of KTLA in UsefulNotes/LosAngeles; this eventually backfired on them when the remnants of [=DuMont=] were reorganized into Metromedia, the precursor to Creator/{{Fox}}. By the 1960s, all of the majors, even once-mighty Creator/{{MGM}}, had TV production facilities, except Paramount. They were finally forced into it by new owners Gulf + Western in 1968, after G + W bought Creator/DesiluStudios from Creator/LucilleBall. The minors never had a problem with TV, since they didn't own theaters, and Columbia Pictures in particular jumped in head-first way back in 1948 with their Creator/ScreenGems division.

* In 1976, Bill Gates wrote [[http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/gateswhine.html "An Open Letter to Hobbyists"]] attacking computer hobbyists for pirating his BASIC software, claiming that it would lead to the death of software programming. Gates has since gone back on this view, claiming that software piracy has allowed Microsoft to expand into China and other developing nations. His words are [[http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-212942.html "As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours."]] On top of this, decades later, [[https://github.com/microsoft/gw-basic Microsoft released GW-BASIC]] [[note]]the standalone version of the Microsoft BASIC port IBM shipped with the UsefulNotes/IBMPersonalComputer[[/note]] as free software under the MIT license.

* TheFifties gave us UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode ushering in UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks and censoring the then-relatively-new (and thus scary) medium of comics and their influence on children, particularly of the horror and crime genres. A lot of the fears at the time stemmed from the idea of comics being exclusively for children. What the censors accomplished was purging everything that ''wasn't'', a state of affairs that would last for the next twenty or thirty years.

** Watterson has made none-too-subtle attacks on comic books -- or at least UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks, which was in full swing at the time -- where they are portrayed as absurdly violent and bloody.
** This attitude was mocked in a Sunday strip, where Calvin reads a [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks Dark Age]] send-up comic book that ends with the NinetiesAntiHero getting his spine violently shattered by a villainess's ray gun. Visibly rattled from the intensity, he leaves to watch something on television, only for his mom to turn it off and tell him to read something because "there's too much violence on TV".

Sometimes the doomsaying has a kernel of truth. New media do change our culture, sometimes for a net loss of quality in art or information. Most often, though, the new medium allows a new freedom or added features that makes for more opportunity. This is OlderThanTheyThink, as you can see from the very first examples.

* AI generated content has increasingly come under greater scrutiny in the public eye. Initially, it started of as simple chat bots that could only respond to human input with a series of preprogrammed responses. However, as technology further developed, chat bots had access to algorithms that allowed them to give more complex responses, sometimes even fooling people into thinking they were human. Soon, AI writers like [=ChatGPT=] were developed that could start writing prompts and eventually full blown essays, novels, scripts, and news articles. Naturally, once conversation begun that soon writers may be replaced by AI, there has been a massive backlash by people claiming that AI generated writing would mean the death of human creativity, with even more extreme actors claiming it's the next step in AI domination of humanity. A very obviously legitimate problem with these programs, like with smartphones in school buildings, is students using it to cheat on homework, as the work involved in going over the generated essay and correcting anything obviously wrong is much less work than researching and building an essay from the ground up. As a result of this, teachers have falsely accused students of using AI to do their homework by running it through a program that supposedly determines if it was written by AI, even if said program would flag the Declaration of Independence as such.
** Most recently, AI generated images have garnered much attention now that AI algorithms can produce pictures that can feasibly have been created by humans. While a lot of people are OK with them so long as they are only used for laughs, such as by generating a dashcam image of a car crashing into Franchise/{{Shrek}} or an expressive oil painting of UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} scoring a slam dunk in basketball (with photographic images being explicitly disclosed as AI-generated), plenty of artists have somewhat rightful concerns of people usurping their hard work by generating something much more impressive-looking simply by typing "Armored knight on a white horse with dappled light coming through the trees, digital art" into a search bar, not helping that someone [[https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-art-wins-competition-angering-artists-2022-9?r=US&IR=T actually won an art competition using an AI-generated painting]].

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]

** This isn't the first time, either; back in the late 1980s and early 1990s (when they were bulky and expensive) having a cell phone at school could get you ''arrested'', thanks to the War on Drugs. [[InsaneTrollLogic The thinking went either that "rich people have cell phones, drug dealers are rich people, so people with cell phones are drug dealers", or "Drug dealers need phones so they can arrange drug transfers in secret..."]] You can practically use that argument to call for the arrest of rich people. Pagers were also banned for the same reason.

** Most recently, AI generated images have garnered much attention now that AI algorithms can produce pictures that can feasibly have been created by humans. While a lot of people are OK with them so long as they are only used for laughs, such as by generating a dashcam image of a car crashing into Franchise/{{Shrek}} or an expressive oil painting of UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} scoring a slam dunk in basketball (with non-photo images being explicitly disclosed as AI-generated), plenty of artists have somewhat rightful concerns of people usurping their hard work by generating something much more impressive-looking simply by typing "Armored knight on a white horse with dappled light coming through the trees, digital art" into a search bar, not helping that someone [[https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-art-wins-competition-angering-artists-2022-9?r=US&IR=T actually won an art competition using an AI-generated painting]].

* The [[UrbanLegend legend]] of ''VideoGame/{{Polybius}}'' may have been, at least partially, based off of the actual [[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/children-80s-never-fear-video-games-did-not-ruin-your-life-180963452/ moral panic]] surrounding arcades that occurred during TheEighties. Despite the many versions of the story passed around (being used as part of an MKULTRA-esque experiment, causing amnesia and suicide, making players addicted, etc.), the common theme is essentially that it was the epitome of everything parents and anti-video game activists of the time were afraid of.

* Not exactly "[[WorkedShoot fictional]]" examples but Wrestling/ChrisJericho and Wrestling/{{Edge|Wrestler}} have both rallied against chat rooms. Jericho's was over a match with Wrestling/RobVanDam that got surprisingly negative reviews(even though most of the commentators actually said it was good, making it more like CheapHeat), while Edge lashed out in a promo about vilification him and Wrestling/{{Lita}} got sleeping behind his wife and Wrestling/MattHardy.

** The 2023 [[UsefulNotes/UnionsInHollywood WGA/SAG-AFTRA]] [[UsefulNotes/TVStrikes Strike]] was sparked in large part as a protest against Hollywood studios aggressively pushing for the use of AI in the entertainment industry. SAG-AFTRA in particular was incensed with the proposal to use AI to scan and own actors' likenesses forever.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'' has an episode where a killer believes and acts out on this. [[spoiler: He was cyberbullied in high school before any precedents were set, meaning the kids who he believes ruined his life weren't charged]]. Therefore, he targets "Snapomatic" (basically Instagram, with a bit of Snapchat thrown in for flavor) celebrities, even using apartment-sharing programs and 3D printers. His ultimate plan involves [[spoiler: capturing the creators of Snapomatic and subjecting them to torture in the high school where he was bullied, all under a live feed on Snapomatic where users can vote for which one survives]] to prove how corrupt New Media are making America. He is called out on this by the main characters, who maintain a more balanced view. The very minor subplot of the episode is Castle filming a "web-mercial" for his latest book because of the positive power he believes the internet has.

Supertrope to SocialMediaIsBad and DigitalPiracyIsEvil. See also: TheatreIsTrueActing (comparing new mediums to "classic" stage acting), MurderDotCom, EverythingIsOnline, ClickbaitGag, ThereShouldBeALaw, TVNeverLies, MediaScaremongering, BooksVsScreens, {{Cyberbullying}}, BadInfluencer, and AppealToTradition. The opposite usually ends with OldMediaPlayingCatchUp. If books or other forms of written communication are portrayed as superior, it may also be an example of ThePowerOfLanguage.

* Many ''Franchise/StarWars'' fans have criticized the prequel trilogy for using CGI instead of physical models and sets like the original trilogy. [[http://makingstarwars.net/2013/08/star-wars-episode-vii-cgi-versus-practical-effects/ This article]] examines the special effects used throughout the franchise, [[NotSoDifferentRemark finding that the techniques used in the PT weren't that different from the OT]].

* ''Film/Contagion2011'' deliciously follows this trope. As a new [[ThePlague global pandemic]] spreads, Alan Krumwiede is an intrepid freelance internet journalist with his own popular self-published news blog. He plays on the trope of the "[[IntrepidReporter lone, intrepid reporter breaking the story!]]" and firmly believes that OldMediaAreEvil. In his posts, he vilifies the government agencies trying to deal with the outbreak, making it more difficult for them to enforce a quarantine. Stirring so much paranoia about government conspiracies and evil big pharmaceutical companies makes him into an internet celebrity, and soon this... self-employed outsider journalist with no credentials is a guest on every national TV news channel and is being put into live debates with CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta. However, instead of posting a report that the government already has a vaccine and is withholding it or something... [[SnakeOilSalesman he tells his thousands of readers that the virus can be cured by taking an over-the-counter herbal remedy]], ''Forsythia''. As it turns out, he's bought up massive amounts of stock in national Forsythia manufacturers and is just trying to profit off the disaster. Adeptly manipulating the Old Media Are Evil trope, the more that national officials on TV state he's a crackpot, the more people think they're just trying to cover him up. When the CDC eventually manages to produce a vaccine, he starts saying its unsafe, trying to keep people buying Forsythia.

* Despite the fact that listening to music while working has been shown to lower stress levels, aid memory retention and provide a rhythm for working, many teachers and employers don't allow for this to be done during independent work. [[JustifiedTrope Of course, this is entirely understandable]] during lessons involving being spoken to frequently or jobs where not being able to hear around you could create dangerous situations but this still often gets enforced for things like study hall or admin work, simply on the basis that they aren't necessary or the person in charge thinks that music causes distractions.

** This isn't the first time, either; back in the late 1980s and early 1990s (when they were bulky and expensive) having a cell phone at school could get you ''arrested'', thanks to the War on Drugs. [[InsaneTrollLogic The thinking went either that "rich people have cell phones, drug dealers are rich people, so people with cell phones are drug dealers", or "Drug dealers need phones so they can arrange drug transfers in secret..."]] You can practically use that argument to call for the arrest of rich people.

* Creator/IsaacAsimov's short story "Literature/DreamingIsAPrivateThing" is ccentered around "dreamies" -- direct neural interface movies. A government official says pornographic dreamies are the one type of pornography which is the worst for the "moral fiber of the nation". (It should be mentioned the rest of the story averts this trope). In ''Literature/TheEndOfEternity'', dreamies are considered a technology which cannot be allowed to exist -- just like nuclear wars (or replicators).
** Another Creator/IsaacAsimov short story, "The Feeling of Power," parodies this trope. It takes place InAWorld where calculators are so widespread and have been used for so long, that people have actually forgotten ''how math works'', including how to add single-digit integers. A technician manages to reverse-engineer the science by studying how computers do simple operations and the society gradually extrapolates how to do more complex equations. The people exposed to this "new" science (which they name [[CallARabbitASmeerp Graphitics]]) worry that it could be dangerous.
** Similarly, he wrote a young adult short story about a world in which voice recognition was so accurate and omnipresent that nobody bothered to learn how to read or write. The protagonist creates a "secret code" for his clubhouse which is nothing more than written English.

--->''The most important thing that we've ever learned\\

* Then there's a ''Maclean's'' magazine article called [[http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20061030_135406_135406 the Internet sucks]] (the author calls that "[[AcceptableTargets terms crude enough for all cyber-dwellers to grasp]]") which is blatantly one-sided in its [[AccentuateTheNegative focus on mainstream Internet culture's flaws]] and [[LogicalFallacies guilt-by-association approach towards an entire medium]]. And yet that was on their website...