Via Verge‘s best-of-2012 list, here’s an essay by Meghan Daum about the lakes of vitriol that make up so many online comments sections.
She compares the unfavorable reaction to a somewhat naïve piece she wrote about safe sex in the ’90s to the daily attacks she now receives on her “looks, marital or reproductive status, and standing on the bitch-o-meter”—and then considers the verbal skirmishes of the Founding Fathers.
If even Benjamin Franklin created proto–sockpuppet accounts like Poor Richard and Silence Dogood, is modern commenting culture really so bad? (Yes. Yes, it is.)
One response
I’m about to publish my book on Ben Franklin and slavery, a topic many, many people find extremely offensive and frightening. I’ve already been warned about the death threats. People like to vent, and that’s ok. But if they’re wrong, they’re wrong no matter how vitriolic or loud they get.
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