I’m fascinated by trolls, mainly because a former friend became one. It’s interesting to read about the darkness that resides within these people.
…the data exposed a quite different reality: internet tossers are just tossers, whether online or in real life.
In other words: the internet isn’t making people rotten, it’s just handing the rotten people a bigger microphone.
Taken together, these studies sketch out a revised model of what online culture does to our discourse. The internet offers toxic people a new outlet for their bile; that bile attracts other toxic people, who amplify it.
Written on September 16, 2021