What is Digg?46 Comments
- rpi22, on 05/19/2008, -3/+37I'm sure you are all very well acquainted with the overly sarcastic, incredibly offensive, and downright juvenile comments that we've seen on Digg. Apparently, hiding in your mother's basement and leaving nasty comments and complaining about everything you don't like gives you a real sense of power in your otherwise powerless life. The anonymity that comes from hiding in a large group yields way to 'mob madness' mentality and allows people to act in ways they otherwise wouldn't if they knew they would be held accountable for their actions.
- saxreturns, on 05/19/2008, -0/+25I'm not sure I'd compare internet conversation to a pub conversation... even very drunk people I meet usually make more sense than some of the semi-literate retards I've had the displeasure of talking to on the internet.
- Portagine, on 05/19/2008, -1/+16This guy sure had a lot of ???
- fr3ddie, on 05/19/2008, -5/+16***** IT, WE'LL DO IT LIVE!
- Kyrgizion, on 05/19/2008, -1/+11Way to summarise the article, douchebag!
Hey, I didn't mean that, just testing the theory... it works! - burketo, on 05/19/2008, -4/+11"hiding in your mother's basement and leaving nasty comments and complaining about everything you don't like gives you a real sense of power in your otherwise powerless life."
that's a little hypocritical don't you think? - juniorb, on 05/19/2008, -0/+5I think the website isn't interpreting his em dashes correctly.
- Sife, on 05/19/2008, -0/+4*****' THING SUCKS!
- smek2, on 05/19/2008, -4/+8"Social psychologists have known for decades that if we reduce our sense of our own identity, a process called deindividuation, we are less likely to stick to social norms." -- one explanation for why seemingly normal men, even husbands and fathers, can turn into murders and torturers. Like in the Third Reich for example. While not every person in germany, during that time, was directly involved in killing and hunting jews, communists or generally political opposites of the national socialistic regime, (in fact that was only a minority) most of them supported, or ignored it.
It is interesting to apply psychological processes like deindividuation to the internet, because it sure has its effect here. I think of myself as a rather rational and generally polite person but even i was temped more then once to comment with a rather rude style. When i have had a bad day and reading something rather stupid, i even might write something far from constructive criticism. Something, as the author points out, i would possibly not say to someones face just like that.
You can really see this effect, if you check YouTube comments (for example) where some users going through the roof with racism, homophobia or other stupid crap, which likely would get commenter a punch in his face in the real world. - burketo, on 05/19/2008, -0/+2i think that is a huge factor in abuse on the internet.... the shear amount of brain farts you see written in any given comments thread far outnumbers what you would hear in a similarly lengthed conversation between a group of people. anonymity makes people say the most ridiculous things, and also people make sarcastic comments that do not come across at all.
if you make a stupid comment on digg, the chances of it offending at least one of the thousand people who might see it is pretty high. I'm all for people having their own opinions (even those who's opinions seem offensive to me) but if you are saying something that you know is a bit...out there... you owe it to yourself to make an attempt to word it as politely and coherantly as you can. otherwise you are looking for someone to be offended (trolling/flaming).
one other thing i want to point out is that if you keep an eye out, you will notice that when people make controversial remarks but do it in a well worded way, they are less likely to get "GTFO libtard" or something in reply. - CressCrowbits, on 05/19/2008, -4/+6What are you, a Scientologist?
- Andrwmorph, on 05/19/2008, -2/+4Pot. Kettle. Black.
- ChrisshEnzo, on 05/23/2008, -0/+1crappy and long-winded but the concept of deindivuation was really interesting
- inactive, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1you're a ***** bellend.
- thewordisberry, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1Likewise - I've been rude a few times online and then felt like a complete jackass for days. This kind of thing is so common in our daily lives, though - think of road rage and the way people scream at customer service reps like they are subhuman. As soon as you get a smidgen of anonymity/separation (the false "shield" of your car, or not being able to see a person's face) the temptation to be impolite is there.
- firewound, on 05/20/2008, -0/+1The Internet is just a communication medium. The real problem lies in the fact that so many people, when given the cloak of anonymity and a consequence-free environment, will begin to act this way. The real question is, why do people act this way to begin with?
- Ikulus, on 05/20/2008, -0/+1Not comma, em-dash.
- joshua5, on 05/20/2008, -0/+1that article is older than the interwebs.
- Hudon689, on 06/13/2009, -1/+2groggy much?
chill dude :) - WilliamDavis, on 05/19/2008, -3/+4The net's full of rude, annoying people? No kidding. Did these people just find the internet? They should have looked into this more before building a website.
- amoirae, on 05/19/2008, -2/+2He's blowing everyone of his crew that diggs his stories.
- rasmasyean, on 05/19/2008, -3/+3This is a relatively new form of communication. Eventually people will get bored of flaming and arguing with BS for the sake of arguing.
It happend this way with AOL chat rooms. Someone would just come in and just get everyone pissed off and was prolly laughing while pretending to be serious even. Few people took the activity seriously. Even romance rooms were filled with people who played different sexes and personalities "for fun". It was such a joke the early chat rooms.
Eventually the novelty will wear off and fewer people will think it's worth their time to "participate" unless it's more serious. - britoca, on 05/19/2008, -1/+1welcome to the world of trolling...
- inactive, on 05/19/2008, -1/+1I have a dog, just like Hitler. I guess that makes me a nazi.
- SunAlex, on 09/03/2008, -0/+0Today we all need to understand our psychology, as we need control.
http://www.mkzine.com/Clues.html
http://auk.kg/academics_programs_bas.html
http://search.ashtech.info/science
http://shpe-sac.org/scholarships.htm
http://www.colinfrizzell.com - inactive, on 05/19/2008, -1/+1This is one bored *****. I'd ***** him up.
- Andrwmorph, on 05/19/2008, -2/+1NUH UH!
- cre8tivate, on 05/19/2008, -2/+1I think much of the miscommunication can be attributed to the lack of the average user's writing skills to effectively convey his thoughts through proper tone and grammar.
- ligatures, on 05/19/2008, -2/+1those are commas. Probably some bad html.
- dazparkour, on 05/19/2008, -2/+1Kettle go woosh...
Hey I see how it works now. - inactive, on 05/19/2008, -3/+2WTF is with the ???
- shitdigga, on 05/19/2008, -7/+6C'mon BabyMan, JUMP!...hey, where'd he go?
- inactive, on 05/19/2008, -2/+1hey you, you wanna fight me?!!1 i am gonna beat the shot oitta uyou1
- StaticThunder, on 05/19/2008, -2/+1+1 Irony.
- inactive, on 05/19/2008, -2/+1I just call it as it is. You *****.
- serif69, on 05/19/2008, -3/+1??? = some variation of "*****".
The article makes much more sense then. - MrGuvnor, on 05/19/2008, -2/+0You are correct!!!
Or maybe:
The author very insecure???
Sticky keyboard???
Do you know?????????? - wrigglesmcguff, on 05/19/2008, -4/+1THERE'S NO WORDS THERE!!!!
- kjm2664, on 05/19/2008, -4/+1reminds me of the originator of the 'i told you i was hardcore' meme:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Vedas - known, on 05/19/2008, -4/+1I request the authors and editors of all electronic and print medium companies including the blogs to publicly endorse the following proposal.
Everyday we see news people deprecating each other in personal, professional, political and religious dimensions.
There is a scientific evidence that this is doing an irreparable harm to the welfare of our children and our future generations.
"To live in society, people have to have an inner mechanism that regulates their behaviour. Rejection defeats the purpose of this, and people become impulsive and self-destructive. You have to use self-control to analyse a problem in an IQ test, for example - and instead, you behave impulsively."
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2051
"There's no such thing as Intrinsic Motivation."
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/inmotiv.htm
We can prevent this from happening by publicly putting off broadcasting such news and analysis.
I propose a 50 year moratorium on individuals and institutions publicly denouncing or demoralizing somebody in electronic and print medium. - Seronis, on 05/19/2008, -8/+4Buried as Lame for having a subject line that makes me feel like I just lost IQ points by the mere act of reading it.
The article itself, while not untrue, still falls in the realm of common sense and isn't quite newsworthy. And I'd prefer this be placed in 'Lifestyle-Culture' and not pollute the science category. - ReligionOfPeace, on 05/19/2008, -7/+2It isn't suicide baiting, it's pouring bleach in the gene pool. It's assisting Darwin with a species improvement project.
- TastyLamp, on 05/19/2008, -11/+4NO YOU LISTEN TO ME FANBOI! M$ SUCKS! SCREW MICROSHAFT AND WINBLOWS! XBOX FTW!
-_- - MrFurious2k, on 05/19/2008, -9/+2Submitter, kill yourself.
- aaabatteries, on 05/19/2008, -14/+6do it *****.
- inactive, on 05/19/2008, -14/+3"Psychologists"
Buried. Crooks and liars have done nothing for me or anyone I know.
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