An interesting side effect of the vicious retaliation against words on the internet (resulting in losing jobs and similar) is that it effectively creates a caste system. On the one hand, you have people like me who can discard their identity and any links to it and say absolutely anything without fear of repercussion. On the other, you have people who are still linked to real-life identities being forced to censor everything they say out of fear.
"Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from repercussions"? Perhaps not, but anonymity sure does, and people who want to say ugly or cruel things will avail themselves of anonymity. In fact, those people would be the most likely to use anonymity, since it's cost is easily outweighed by the risk of those disproportionate retaliations.
So, I ask you, does retaliating against stuff like this tell people it isn't OK, or does it tell them that they need to be anonymous? What about when parts of the world conflict on whether a globally-distributed statement is OK?
"Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from repercussions"? Perhaps not, but anonymity sure does, and people who want to say ugly or cruel things will avail themselves of anonymity. In fact, those people would be the most likely to use anonymity, since it's cost is easily outweighed by the risk of those disproportionate retaliations.
So, I ask you, does retaliating against stuff like this tell people it isn't OK, or does it tell them that they need to be anonymous? What about when parts of the world conflict on whether a globally-distributed statement is OK?