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Moviechat has replicated the IMDB Message Boards!

PoS

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Wow. I discovered it by accident, but it seems it even has some of the old posts I put up on IMDB all those years ago. LOL now I can start bashing people again. :mrgreen:

How MovieChat dethroned IMDb as the go-to place to talk TV and films | WIRED UK

On February 20 2017, hundreds of thousands of comments were permanently removed from film fan site the Internet Movie Database, more commonly known as IMDb.
For over 16 years, IMDb’s message boards had chronicled the thoughts of ordinary people as they watched hit blockbusters (“Where are the sharks?” – user Corinaam on Titanic), beloved classics (“Can you find a wife like Mary today?” – MajDutch on It’s a Wonderful Life), and Shrek (“Shrek is a metaphor for racism in America!?” – TMC-4 (3838)). But two years ago, IMDb decided to remove the boards.
The reason the company, which is a subsidiary of Amazon, gave for the purge was that the message boards were “no longer providing a positive, useful experience” for their users – in short, there were a lot of bigots.
Like many spaces on the internet, the IMDb message boards were plagued by racism, sexism and trolls. Yet despite the bad actors on some forums, the loss of the boards was perceived as a tragic moment in internet history. Hundreds of thousands of people had posted hundreds of thousands of thoughts over almost two decades, and it was all going to be lost. That is, until Jim Smith had an idea.
 
Amazon settled more than 600 lawsuits emanating from its own discussion boards, another 200 or so from IMDb when they bought the parent company. Shut down all its chat boards originally designed to promote consumer responses to products. All well beyond any attempted controls. Filled with fake accounts, raided constantly by hate groups, individual maniacs on flame campaigns, along with fake reviews for and against competing products, weird fringe religious groups on crusades, and so on. IMDb was suffering similar problems. One of the settled lawsuits against IMDb was by a woman who claimed she was physically assaulted because of her posts declaring the American movie industry had been taken over by aliens from the galaxy Xantes 5. No astronomer was aware of any such galaxy. Local small claims courts in New Canaan Connecticut showed similar law actions by her against more than 20 other online forums (including a local adopt a park board), local police, the mayor and state legislators. Amazon lawyers paid her $200 to walk away after signing a release.

One of Amazon's product forums was found to be source of coded messages for pimps trading product (prostitutes) doing tours of multiple locations, another dispensing information for a ring of pedophiles trading child porn. Amazon self policing was trumped by Justice Dept. arrests of the participants, before those particular forums could be shut down, well before Amazon shut them all down. This was all well before the shut down of Craigs List and Backpage prostitute advertising.

I run a private intranet for my extended family. The younger teens think we adults are not hip to the code and slang they use to post secret messages to each other, we're not supposed to understand. They forget we were all once teens and pulled our own stunts. Our parents knew everything. We know everything. :)

Most internet users are oblivious to these things, not looking for them, and writing off the weird as weird. More interested in gardening tips, book & movie reviews, entertainment gossip, a bit of porn and new recipes than criminal activities or insanity.
 
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