What's annoying is how internet culture has this "lol for the lulz" attitude about everything, and the moment you take something seriously you're called out. I bring this up because this isn't just internet drama. It's about an internet company and a management mistake. This post comes across more antagonistic than I wanted it, and it's not so much directed at you, but your post brought up the thought.
As with everything, I think that there is a balance to be struck about how seriously one should take internet drama. On the one hand, dismissing something just because it's on the Internet is obviously not a good approach, and I think this is changing (with laws against cyberbulling becoming more prominent, for instance). On the other hand, I think it is also possible to go too far in getting 'outraged' about things that happen on the Internet, and I think there's been a fair bit of that with Reddit's latest blunder -- lots of anger about subreddits "falling prey" to the "empty promises" of Reddit admins, downvote brigading and nasty comments on said subreddits, the portrayal of Ellen Pao, and so on seem vastly disproportionate to me considering the issues at stake.
I agree! In both cases there seems to be this kind of departure from reality. But then again even in the ridiculously angry anti-reddit movement stirring on reddit, they are saying and posting horrible things because "lol it's the internet". The idea that it's "just words" and internet life isn't real lets people say such vitriolic things, I think.
I'm not sure how far we can go without referring the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.}(http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19) and later, more serious treatments of the topic.](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-online-secrets/201409/internet-trolls-are-narcissists-psychopaths-and-sadists) >The relationship between trolling and the Dark Tetrad is so significant that the authors write in their paper: >> "... the associations between sadism and GAIT (Global Assessment of Internet Trolling) scores were so strong that it might be said that online trolls are prototypical everyday sadists." [emphasis added]
I'd be guessing, but I would not be suprised to learn that the entire design of hubski has evolved to deal with the balance of concerns here - the ability to discuss important topics without being harassed online or doxxed and threatened. There are many people who find anonomity to be important to their personal survival. I have less of a need for it than I once did, but I have objections to being tracked, watched and monetized - and of course, it's possible some political shift could occur that makes what I said somewhere five or ten years ago a cause of suspicion. The McCarthy flap should underline the risk of having one's politics become retroactively controversial. But by the same token, to quote Penny Arcade, "Shitcock." Those who can act with impunity often do. Most people don't - but it doesn't take all that many rampaging sociopaths to disrupt a functional culture. But I simply cannot remember such a wonderfully documented example. That's exactly what's happening at Reddit. (Even leaving out the potential complication that the Interim CEO is one herself, an assumption I find worth keeping in mind.) But I don't think it's an internet phenomenon. I think it's more visible on the internet, because nothing ever truly vanishes. It will be familiar to anyone who's been gossiped about; forced out of a church or even a town due to some whispering campaign. On the internet you may not be able to prove who did it - but you can't argue that it didn't happen. So let's turn the question on it's head. Could it be that this, the latest episode of "Internet, Threat or Menace" be more about concerns that if the dynamics of such behaviors are made obvious, we might evolve better means of dealing with them?