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Jump to full article: BBC Online, 2009-11-16
Author: Rory Cellan-Jones * 08:34 UK time, Monday, 16 November 2009
Intro: You don't have to roam far online to find examples of rudeness, aggression and downright bullying. I had a quick scan of the politics blogs - left and right - this morning and these were just a few of the comments I found:
"He should be hung drawn and quartered, as slowly as is possible to maximise his suffering."
"This EVIL person deserves no pity. He is accomplished in one thing only. Utter Cowardice."
"The rest of Parliament should be shot, not hung."
But it's not just politics that is discussed online with this level of vituperation. Almost any area of life - from religion, to the environment to literature - seems capable of attracting those, who when sat in front of a computer, will tap out messages of hate that they would never be likely to express face-to-face with their opponents.
And what do nearly all of these angry people have in common? They are anonymous, leaving just a nom de guerre scattered across various blogs and message boards. . . .
I have had this myself. On an old, now abandoned, blog I criticised those who were against the smoking ban. Within hours I had personal attacks from people - not questioning me on what I wrote, but threatening me, insulting what they thought I might look like, saying they knew where I lived and they would "come and get me" and so on.
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