Online behaviour

[Red Celt]

I have long held an interest in the apparent disparity between how people behave online and how they behave offline. For many, those two different states produce two different behaviours. From a philosophical point of view, this interests me. Why? Because a key mechanism of morality is missing in the online world and the resulting behaviours enforce my own views as to how morality evolved for humanity.

Actions cause results. A simple truism, but it is an important one when it comes to ethics. If you were to slap someone in the face, you know that something will happen afterwards. If they’re physically-confident, you’ll get slapped back. This is a good de-motivator for slapping people. If they’re not physically-confident, they’re going to be upset with you. Their pain (whether physical or mental) can be seen by you, by looking at their face. If you hold the (prominent) ability of empathy, you will feel bad about causing them pain. Again, this is a good de-motivator for how you treat people.

Online, the feedback mechanism is removed. When a reality-system is composed simply of words, it is easy to forget that there is another moral agent behind those words. You can find it more difficult to empathise with someone if you can’t see their face. Importantly, you are also safe from retribution.

Within this disparity of online/offline behaviour, a lack of empathy is much more likely… as is an unwarranted feeling of bravery, when cowardice is so easy.

When I first started using online forums, I quickly recognised all of the above and became determined to do one simple thing: treat others online the same way as you would offline. Rather than just avoiding online cowardice, it importantly removes the juxtaposition of how you would treat a person if they were standing in front of you. Consistency is an important thing; otherwise, you would be prone to hypocrisy.

On a similar ethical note, I treat people how they treat me. I have my reasons for this which are too extensive to detail here… but, summarised, it is an issue of corporeal karma. It is an issue of justice. People who behave badly deserve to be treated badly. In this way (if in no other way) they experience the cause-and-effect that I’d previously mentioned. It is a motivator for good behaviour and a de-motivator for bad behaviour. Essentially, I hold up a metaphorical mirror. If you don’t like how I’m treating you, it is an indicator that you should perhaps stop being a dick. If you don’t like how I’m treating a friend of yours, it is an indicator that you should perhaps improve your choice of friends.

Consideration is a good thing… but it must be given if you expect it to be returned.

And don’t treat people online any differently than you would if they were standing in front of you.

It isn’t a case of “well, it’s the internet – not the real world, so anything goes”… it is an extension of the real world. Much as a telephone conversation shouldn’t be treated as a means of revoking your empathy or consideration, that is just as true when the medium of communication involves the written word.

[Red Celt]

All of the above is a general observation/viewpoint. More specifically, taken from some events today...

If you're going to throw insults around... and (justly) have insults returned to you... don't click the Report button, as if you are guilt-free and the other person is guilty. If you can't handle the results of your actions, pack up your computer and send it back to the retailer you bought it from.

Include a note that says "too fucking stupid to be allowed on the internet".

Cheers, Huxley.

[Santa_Claus]

I disagree.


Being at arms length means that people can exchange ideas and argue without fear of physical violence from those who disagree - and IMO that is a good thing - the price of that is not always as polite as in real life...........and for some people that is a real problem (in real life folks tend to congretate in groups with similar ideas - and many seem to be genuinely surprised that not everyone shares their bubble)...............Suck it up or switch off.

In real life I do not of course go up to real strangers and call them CUNTS (unless I have been drinking - obviously). But the flipside is that online I have never had to think about whether it makes sense to kill someone in case they one day think about doing same to me / mine. Overall I would call that a score draw.

Relax - it's only the f#cking internet.

[odysseus]

I think it happens for a bunch of reasons. For some, it will allow them to say things they haven't got the balls to say in real life, so they compensate by being an abrasive ass-clown online. Role play, in short. For others it may just offer an intro into being more assertive with the benefits of not having to deal with the face-to-face ramifications of their words, and the option of outright withdrawal if need be. Other people may just choose to be dicks because they can, it is fun, and they get their jollies winding people up.

Also, online communication doesn't offer the same degree of nuance and inflexion of spoken language, so care has to be taken by both poster and reader to adequately communicate what they mean, and also to be able to read between the lines and not overanalyse someone else's post. Practically, most of us type like we speak so there will always be misunderstandings.

[rachelbean]

First, a disclaimer: I don't know what stuff earlier today you are talking about because I have only read stuff in the pub and am behind even on that (and I block the News forums and some others so I often miss out on drama). With that said, in a general context...

I'm 100% with you up until this point:

On a similar ethical note, I treat people how they treat me. I have my reasons for this which are too extensive to detail here… but, summarised, it is an issue of corporeal karma. It is an issue of justice. People who behave badly deserve to be treated badly. In this way (if in no other way) they experience the cause-and-effect that I’d previously mentioned. It is a motivator for good behaviour and a de-motivator for bad behaviour. Essentially, I hold up a metaphorical mirror. If you don’t like how I’m treating you, it is an indicator that you should perhaps stop being a dick. If you don’t like how I’m treating a friend of yours, it is an indicator that you should perhaps improve your choice of friends.

I think it's important that with online interactions you are more patient and less assuming than in real life because you don't have the context of people's physical cues or tone of voice among other clues to their demeanour/intent. I have seen over and over again people online go off on someone else because they misunderstood just that. Either not getting that someone was joking in a light-hearted way, or just actually completely misreading what the person said, or reading tone into that I didn't see at all and responding in kind. You then have the situation where you think you are giving as good as you got, but really you are just creating bad blood where none existed previously. So it's possible you may be treating someone badly because you misunderstand them, not because they are a dick.

And, as for the last bit, if you're treating a friend of mine badly why would I think I should change my friends whom are my friends for good reason, if I don't even know you? I don't think any reasonable person would make that leap

[Red Celt]

And, as for the last bit, if you're treating a friend of mine badly why would I think I should change my friends whom are my friends for good reason, if I don't even know you? I don't think any reasonable person would make that leap

That was added due to personal experience. Friends of dicks have been blinded by that friendship and become oblivious to how dickish their friends are being. It is a footnote to the whole thing... that the dickishness that is being returned has been earned, not randomly assigned.

Relax - it's only the f#cking internet.

Taking that view is just utterly irrational... and I remain baffled as to why it is taken. The internet is the medium of communication. What happens at either end of that communication is very real.

As a student of philosophy (concentrating on morality) this whole subject is important to me. So excuse me for my interest in it and my (presumed) over-reaction to the immorality of some people purely because the medium makes it so much easier to do. This stuff does matter. It matters to me and it sure as hell should matter to you, else... why spend so much time on a forum?

Am I just expecting too much from humanity, with the expectation that people should behave the same way that evolution has expected a social animal to behave? It isn't too much to ask, surely? Is empathy really that absent amongst the naked apes? Is Lord of the Flies documentative, rather than pure fiction? I mean Jesus Fuck, it really doesn't seem that much to expect.

[Jason]

For one thing I tend to listen to what someone said before I respond, however on the internets I often post without actually reading the thread (or I'll very quickly skim the last page or two of it). So it is now. I haven't actually read much of what has been written but I'll respond anyway.

Another thing is I used to be a lazy asshole on the intertubes - I'd shit all over everything - but now I'm not.

[rasetsu]

Cutting in line here, the specific online media matters. I am a different person on IRC than what I am on a BBS, and different on phpBB than myBB, and different between Ratz, AFO, and theologyweb, among others. Community and context matter.


(Though I'm eminently myself in texting. Who'd a thought?)

[Jason]

If you're a chanop that might explain that.

[rasetsu]

If you're a chanop that might explain that.

Not exactly. As with any moderating task, that tends to split one into two or more distinct modes.


More telling, I'm a heartless bitch with no patience for weakness and moral infirmity. When I'm in op mode, I strike with stunning velocity and force.

When not, I'm kind as kittens. Though having just been ejected for "disrupting" a Buddhist reading group, my compatriots tongue in cheek observed that this was not a surprising result.
(One sobriquet I earned after one of our usually amusing tete a tetes was that I was "the Iceland Volcano.")

I'm not so much "a fire starter" as I am "the nuclear option."

[Gawdzilla Sama]

[amused]

I consider myself a decent netizen. I've made mistakes in the past but learned to see the person on the other side.

[rasetsu]

I consider myself a decent netizen. I've made mistakes in the past but learned to see the person on the other side.

Mods! Mods!


Are you gonna let this prick get away with that? Ohh yeah?! You lost your balls or something?

[amused]

I consider myself a decent netizen. I've made mistakes in the past but learned to see the person on the other side.

Mods! Mods!


Are you gonna let this prick get away with that? Ohh yeah?! You lost your balls or something?

I have balls the size of Minnesota, so I've been told.

[Bella Fortuna]

I consider myself a decent netizen. I've made mistakes in the past but learned to see the person on the other side.

Mods! Mods!


Are you gonna let this prick get away with that? Ohh yeah?! You lost your balls or something?

I have balls the size of Minnesota, so I've been told.

Do they have the same accent?