Interesting discussion. I've looked at Reddit off and on over the years and to an outsider like me it seems to have become less and less civil over time. I've wondered about that.
Clearly the Internet gives the broken and angry people a voice they didn't have before. Sometimes that helps them, but often it seems to result in just a bunch bile being spewed around.
At what point does the combination of IP address + bile start to become a corpus for focusing our efforts at community remediation? Is there a common good to be had by finding out if these are communities of angry people or are they just scattered about in the general population. Can we help them? Should we?
There is a problem where dysfunctional people can meet online and their behaviour feels more normal to them.
Thus, peeping toms would normally be alone and feel some kind of shame, and maybe want to seek help, but now they have /r/creepshots and a receptive audience and validation.
Clearly the Internet gives the broken and angry people a voice they didn't have before. Sometimes that helps them, but often it seems to result in just a bunch bile being spewed around.
At what point does the combination of IP address + bile start to become a corpus for focusing our efforts at community remediation? Is there a common good to be had by finding out if these are communities of angry people or are they just scattered about in the general population. Can we help them? Should we?