Critics may accuse President-elect Donald J. Trump and his supporters of dragging down public discourse in America, but civility took leave of open discussions years ago – online. Beneath digital news stories and social media posts are unmoderated, often anonymous comment streams showing in plain view the anger, condescension, misogyny, xenophobia, racism and nativism simmering within the citizenry.
In the early days of the World Wide Web, digital conversation areas were small, disparate, anonymous petri dishes, growing their own online cultures of human goodness as well as darkness. But when virtual forums expanded onto mainstream news sites more than a decade ago, incivility became the dominant force. The people formerly known as the audience used below-the-line public squares to sound off with the same coarse "straight talk" as our current president-elect.
[...] As a scholar of journalism and digital discourse, the crucial point about online comment forums and social media exchanges is that they have allowed us to be not just consumers of news and information, but generators of it ourselves. This also gives us the unbridled ability to say offensive things to wide, general audiences, often without consequences. That's helped blow the lid off society's pressure cooker of political correctness. Doing so on news websites gave disgruntled commenters (and trolls) both a wider audience and a fig leaf of legitimacy. This has contributed to a new, and more toxic, set of norms for online behavior. People don't even need professional news articles to comment on at this point. They can spew at will.
Freedom of speech is only for approved narratives. Miss America explained it best in Bananas.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday December 28 2016, @05:45AM
And hence removed the power brokers whose only job was stealing power from common people by defining what is politically correct and what is not.
The whole bunch of professions around it are being obsolete that is by design and will of the people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @07:30AM
Cuban, Cuban, do we need say more than, Cuban? Will of the people, for a revolution to kick the bautistas the hell off our island, if not off the planet. Yee-haaa! Cuba Libre!
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday December 28 2016, @09:01AM
Duuuude... Its - Cuban - Cigar - btw, one the finest cigars that were banned until very recently.
It didn't help Obama, btw.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 28 2016, @11:02AM
You're missing the key element here. The same people who freed up trade of your namesakes are the ones who want to ban tobacco products entirely.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.