Are we really sure that democracy is a good thing? I mean, reading comments after a news article on an online news source is a lesson in why people probably shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

I write a periodic opinion column for a (minor) foreign news outlet, and I have received responses that range from being entirely off-topic to vile and nasty. And half the time, I’m not even talking about anything especially controversial.

Then again, it might just be the anonymity the internet affords that facilitates the knobbery.

I know it shouldn’t, but it sort of bothered me this time. And reading other newspapers online, of course, reveals just how bad people can actually be.

I would strongly suggest you never read the comments on a youtube video…

I would strongly suggest you never read the comments on a youtube video.

Or most online newspaper articles. People have always had funny opinions, the internet just gives them a place to voice them.

Then again, it might just be the anonymity the internet affords that facilitates the knobbery.

I’d say so.

I know it shouldn’t, but it sort of bothered me this time.

Never read the bottom half of the Internet.

‘Comment’ has sort of become currency – in the same way as ‘likes’ and ‘shares’. It seems to have become more important to comment on an issue than to be informed about it. The news cycle seems to demand immediate reaction. Its all the more prevalent in online platforms but even in traditional media it seems in the face of any natural disaster, act of war, scientific discovery or policy announcement it seems more important to stop someone in the street who’s hardly aware of the situation and ask the ‘what they think’ than inform them and everyone else about ‘what has happened’.

Generally the bottom half of the internet is pretty much sewerage – soul destroying. But I don’t know if its better to know about it or not – I sometimes wish there was a setting in youtube for viewers to hide comments but then I also think to doesn’t help to not know. When you think about Trump’s sudden ascendancy it seems to have come from ‘nowhere’ but its been something thats been sloshing around in that sewerage for years.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUCJJZHFgrg[/video]

The anonymity plus the audience. Penny Arcade take on it a few years back.

Ignorance is no bar. Companion piece to the above.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQnd5ilKx2Y[/video]

Are we really sure that democracy is a good thing?

The recent experiment with it by the Labour party is going really really well….

Anonymous
Ability to sign up in seconds with no real verification

IMO Twitter is worse than the news websites. Even Facebook with verified identities has a lot of pretty appalling stuff.

One of my beer inspired ideas for democracy goes as follows.

Everyone gets one voucher at the beginning of the year that allows them to place a vote.

The vouchers are redeemable in X factor, Strictly, and Elections.

Each voucher can be used only once.

Generally the bottom half of the internet is pretty much sewerage – soul destroying.

I now think that there will be a site somewhere on the internet called Sewer rage.. 😉

No offence OP but you might be writing a load of old bollocks. Got a link?

No offence OP but you might be writing a load of old bollocks. Got a link?

No offence taken, but I know that I’m not. Experts in my area are complimentary; it’s just the inarticulate, anonymous folk who can’t constrain themselves from offering ‘thoughts’ whose comments bothered me this time. I have no issue at all with reasoned argument/criticism.

The FT comments section often leaves me wide-eyed!!

Just remember that half of all humans are below average intelligence

I purposely avoid any comments section underneath a cycling article in the mainstream press/ media.

Soul destroyingly predictable:

Road tax
Red lights
Lycra louts
Road tax
Pavement cycling
Lights
Road tax

Repeat ad infinitum

Ive been banned from the daily mail loads of times for my comments. I may also have been banned from some bike riding forums…
I expect people think I’m trolling, but they are my real opinions. 🙂

I read The Metro at lunchtime (only because the cafe has it and it gives me a break from staring at my phone).

The letters page on that is usually quite amusing/appalling. Most of them read as if they were written in crayon.

I have a private game with myself where I try to pick the “article” in today’s paper that will generate all the outraged letters on the following day. It’s usually pretty easy!

I miss the days when you had to wonder what went on in people’s heads

Stapeley Water Gardens?
A nice day out, but best to take a flask.

I miss the days when you had to wonder what went on in people’s heads

Its interesting isn’t it – even right here – because of the internet we’re telepathically connected to all kinds of people we don’t know. Even if we don’t really want to know them.