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Why we crave internet justice
21–30 of 55 posts
Re: Why we crave internet justice
#22[deleted]
Re: Why we crave internet justice
#23The submitted title was "Why People Are So Awful Online", which was legit because it's the HTML doc title of the article. But it's leading to shallow comments in the thread. Maybe the article's page title will prompt something more interesting.
Re: Why we crave internet justice
#24One reason is lack of skin in the game.
Another is since the Web is perceived as a world different from ours people can choose to act out different parts of their personality to (mostly) vent off.
Then there are also bots. These are awful, because they were programmed to.
Re: Why we crave internet justice
#25"The social dynamics of the net are a direct consequence of the fact that nobody has yet developed a Remote Strangulation Protocol." -- Larry Wall
You'd be surprised: https://www.foaas.com/
Re: Why we crave internet justice
#26I present to you the John Gabriel Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory (2004): https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 Normal person + anonymity + audience = Total Fuckwad. This has always been true and always will be.
Thanks to Facebook we know this theory to be falsified. It's not anonymity that makes people total fuckwads, but rather a lack of consequences for their actions. A Facebook luser who posts political drivel that just happens to agree with the position of its owners will face no repercussions and consequently will be emboldened to act like a fuckwad. A lack of anonymity hasn't changed that there nor will it, but actually moderating would.
TL;DR The whole world would be a much nicer place if some people had the testicular fortitude to tell loudmouths to put a sock in it.
Re: Why we crave internet justice
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cars have a particular....lack of communication ability, compared to the internet. Though a cute joke, I think there is something lost by reducing it to "people can be awful anywhere".
People interact with other drivers while on the road, it's just a different type of communication. I think some element of feeling "removed" from the situation compared to a face-to-face encounter has an effect in our interactions.
I remember reading about a study that found people were more ethical (IIRC, less likely to cheat on a quiz) if there was a pair of eyes in their visual field. Not even real eyes, just a photo.
Every time I’m berated while playing Xbox I wonder if eye contact, or even perceived eye contact, does something to our brains that makes us behave more in accordance with social norms.
Re: Why we crave internet justice
#28George Saunders gave an interview with the Guardian earlier this year[0] in which he said, “ There’s something wonderful about the spontaneity of social media, but I think at this point it’s becoming 100% toxic for people to be firing off the top of their brains. One of the things [the book I’m writing] says is that the deeper parts of our brain are actually more empathic. If you revise something 20 times, for a mysterious reason, it becomes more social, empathic and compassionate. With Chekhov, you feel he’s always saying: “Well, what else?”, “Is there anything else I should know?”, or “Maybe I’m wrong.” And all of that seems to be designed to foster love, or at least some kind of relation to the other that’s got possibility. So I’m not a fan of social media. I’m not on it. And I won’t be, because I think it’s killing us, actually. I really do.” I had never considered it from this angle before, but I think he’s right. The internet’s superpower—frictionless engagement—is also it’s greatest shortcoming because of who we are as people.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jan/02/george-saunder...
Re: Why we crave internet justice
#29They can be awful offline too.
Working retail as a teenager made me lose faith in humanity -- and all the theories that blame anonymity for online toxicity. Sure, the darkest parts of the internet can be cesspools, but give the average person a tiny bit of entitlement and power, and they'll abuse others just for the pleasure of it. And this was over a decade ago. So glad I got out and into software. I can't imagine what it must be like working ret…
Having worked both in a fastfood restaurant and a grocery store I can definitely agree with this.
Everything from a person throwing a sandwhich at the drive through worker because her precooked ham was pink and therefore raw...people screaming and ranting because their over medium eggs, cooked on a 900° grill are too soft or too hard.
Getting screamed at because we were out of Schweppes tonic water, Nope, Canada Dry isn't the same, it had to be Schweppes, and only cans because the person was a solo drinker.
I was probably screamed at by random people more in the two years I spent at those jobs, 3 months at one and a bit over a year and a half at the other, than i have been in the entirety of the rest of my life.
Re: Why we crave internet justice
#30People are awful in cars too. So the rule seems to be that people are awful when there is a piece of glass between them.
This is it, righteous internet rage is very similar to road rage. The main factors are:
- the lack of perceived humanity in the perpetrator, because they are in a car or at a distant computer.
- the inability to communicate directly in an interactive way, preventing initial release of the expression
- the reduction of the entirety of the person to their actions in this specific context without room for extenuating circumstances.
The last one is even worse online because of retention. A reverse lens can occur, instead of viewing the ‘bad tweet’ in the context of the person’s overall output, the overall output is viewed and scrutinized via assumptions made from the offending action.