A new study links partisan activity on the Internet to widespread online toxicity, revealing that politically-engaged users exhibit uncivil behavior even in non-political discussions. The findings are based on an analysis of hundreds of millions of comments from over 6.3 million Reddit users.
I usually complain about the usage of the word “toxic” but at least here it’s well-defined by the article. Still unnecessary though.
Their finding is interesting though - that “online political discourse tends to be uncivil because the people who opt into such discourse are generally uncivil”.
And that begs the question why. My hypothesis is that it has to do with stupidity: political discussion offers a safe space for the stupid*, and uncivil interactions usually have at least one side being stupid. Doubly true in Reddit because stupidity there is seen like a badge of honour.
*NOTE: when I say “the stupid” I am not talking about a well-defined group of people. I’m talking about a set of behaviours (assumptiveness, context illiteracy, a tendency to oversimplify things, wishful thinking, lack of logical “parsing” etc.). Everyone is “the stupid” once in a while, but some way more often than others.
I usually complain about the usage of the word “toxic” but at least here it’s well-defined by the article. Still unnecessary though.
Their finding is interesting though - that “online political discourse tends to be uncivil because the people who opt into such discourse are generally uncivil”.
And that begs the question why. My hypothesis is that it has to do with stupidity: political discussion offers a safe space for the stupid*, and uncivil interactions usually have at least one side being stupid. Doubly true in Reddit because stupidity there is seen like a badge of honour.
*NOTE: when I say “the stupid” I am not talking about a well-defined group of people. I’m talking about a set of behaviours (assumptiveness, context illiteracy, a tendency to oversimplify things, wishful thinking, lack of logical “parsing” etc.). Everyone is “the stupid” once in a while, but some way more often than others.