My first reaction to this, and especially to the "hn" wall, was: this is very cool, we can all collaboratively write some weird/interesting/funny stuff and overall it's going to be artful and inspiring in some way.
Of course, that's not how it turned out.
I've been looking at the "hn" wall there periodically for a while now, and it's interesting because you can see what becomes of people when they're acting anonymously - even when they come from a relatively tightly selected non-anonymous group.
The vast majority of edits are what I would characterize as destructive, because they have one or more of these properties:
- deleting or defacing stuff other people wrote
- leaving boastful remarks on the size of their penis
- posting hate speech, including misogynistic and racist comments
- posting ASCII pornography
- filling the page with kilobytes of garbage
What's surprising to me is we're not exactly a group of random 10 year olds, yet that's what we revert to when we think we're not accountable. Here's a piece of (relatively?) intact dialogue from that wall summing it up:
"<- and somehow we wonder why there are so few women in programming "
"No, that is due to innate sex differences. Read up."
"Yeah right, it can't possibly have anything to do with crap like this"
"It's both, but mostly innate. It's the same with race.
Look up race and IQ studies. (OMG! Did I just say that?!?!)"
"The more relevant question is would you say it with your HN
username attached to that comment?"
"Of course not. The Matriarchy would eat me alive. "
While this is all very depressing, I've also seen users who balance all of this out. There are (or have been at some point) a lot of entertaining posts and short exchanges on that wall, but to me the most amazing thing is there seem to be people who actually clean up the mess and try to preserve the good content. Of course they don't stand a chance, but it's good to know they exist.
(THERE IS ONLY LISP)
and
GROW VAT MEAT!
/\_/\
____/ o o \
/~____ =ΓΈ= /
(______)__m_m)
I DEMAND
VEGAN FOOD!
rich hickey is frowning upon your shenanigans!
Are the comments you're quoting really hate speech? They seem to not be, and they are pretty mild as far as internet misogyny and racism go, no doubt because of where the posters came from.
Speaking generally, this is more evidence that anonymous internet communities that prioritize short messages converge towards /b/, which is to say, trolling and pornography. What was unusual was seeing an anonymous and less-so comment platform interact. I found the anonymous scrutinizing of one particular user's behavior and the calls for his ban discomforting.
"(OMG! Did I just say that?!?!)"
"Of course not. The Matriarchy would eat me alive. "
Anon got a point there. These studies do exist, but we don't talk about them because Everyone Knows that only Bad People believe things like that. And once you are a Bad Person there is no shortage of people who will go to great lengths to silence you, lest you spread your Doubleplusungood Crimethink.
Of course, that's not how it turned out.
I've been looking at the "hn" wall there periodically for a while now, and it's interesting because you can see what becomes of people when they're acting anonymously - even when they come from a relatively tightly selected non-anonymous group.
The vast majority of edits are what I would characterize as destructive, because they have one or more of these properties:
What's surprising to me is we're not exactly a group of random 10 year olds, yet that's what we revert to when we think we're not accountable. Here's a piece of (relatively?) intact dialogue from that wall summing it up: While this is all very depressing, I've also seen users who balance all of this out. There are (or have been at some point) a lot of entertaining posts and short exchanges on that wall, but to me the most amazing thing is there seem to be people who actually clean up the mess and try to preserve the good content. Of course they don't stand a chance, but it's good to know they exist.