Stifling Anonymous Sociopaths

[jeff_duntemann]

Mike Reith sent me a link to a nice article in the New York Times about the radical bad manners that prevail in the blogosphere. It's gotten bad enough so that Jimmy Wales and Tim O'Reilly are trying to bring about the return of blogger civility by devising a Blogger's Code that

Comments

[baron_waste]

It's an interesting question, because it may not be anything new. The 19th century was rather vituperative in its public discourse - at least in the United States; Mark Twain's "Journalism in Tennessee" is an only-slightly-exaggerated account. Back then, when the difference between a pamphlet, a newsheet and an actual newspaper was, shall we say, blurry, people sounded off and fulminated at each other in a snowstorm of paper and ink - and got into fistfights and gunfights over it, if necessary.

I suggest that this is the normal state of affairs in a Republic such as ours. Not until radio stations began - and then television, which wasn't cheap - did monolithic corporations dispensing The News come to stand astride the nation. Even then, local stations had editorials, which were sometimes rebutted, but the tide was ebbing.

Now, though, Poor Richard Saunders lives again on the Internet (Franklin's Almanack was a blog - it's instantly recognizable!) and that rip-roaring public discourse is again filling the air with vitriol and

[jeff_duntemann]

Agreed--though the reasons behind my agreement are actually a little more subtle than that. Tune in again tomorrow...

[unkbar]

So what? This is nothing new. Is the level of discourse any lower than it is on Usenet, or was on the old unmoderated chat rooms? I think not.

We've already seen that any unmoderated forum will have some idiots, trolls, and provocateurs. If the civility level gets too low for you, grow a thicker skin or go read somebody else's blog.

[jeff_duntemann]

For the most part, I do. I've worked for years at being impossible to offend ("taking offense" is actually a form of infantile agression) and I read blogs very selectively. One reason is the value of my time: Incivility makes a forum much less valuable by raising the noise level to the point where it swamps useful discussion and drives away intelligent people who are still working on that thicker skin. Incivility is almost entirely useless, and I avoid it. It does have one use and one use only (albeit an important one) which I'll come back to in tomorrow's entry.

[jetfx]

Baron_waste linked this post if you're curious where I came from. Also may I add you as a friend, you seem to share a lot of interests with me?

I think you hit the problem spot on, that anonymity is the root of internet nastiness. When there is little chance of what you say on the internet reflecting back on your reputation in real life, normal rules of engagement disappear.

It's much like the ring of Gyges, where a ring that grants the power of invisibility makes a normally virtuous man unable to resist the temptation to steal because he cannot be caught. Essentially, rules governing human interaction are social constructs and when they cannot be enforced, many people act as if they do not apply