[Background: the cypherpunk/pw:cypherpunk account used for HotWired's Threads discussion section has been used for anonymous flaming and attacks. --Declan] Linkname: The Netizen - Media Rant - Jon Katz URL: http://www.netizen.com/netizen/96/40/katz0a.html HotWired The Netizen 30 Sep 96 [...] In addition, the digital culture has long been demonized by the outside world and is inherently defensive and edgy. Cypherpunks give us fascinating insights into this subject, since their equivalent exists in no other medium, and they epitomize the often mindless verbal violence that characterizes some parts of the Net. Their original purpose - techno-anarchy and advocating unfettered access to information - conflict head-on with the Web's mainstreaming and the arrival of the newly wired middle class. Cypherpunks don't want real confrontations or discussions, or they would reveal their identities and make it possible to respond, as most flamers do. They are among media's rarest and at the same time most easily recognized subspecies: nihilists. Anonymous communication makes verbal violence easy. Since most flamers don't know their targets and won't ever meet them, it's easy enough to attack individuals and question personal motives, with none of the social consequences of face-to-face verbal assaults. And Net communication also offers no filter: because it's instantaneous, people often don't take the time to cool off, reflect, or take another look at the messages they mail and post. When tempers flare here, it doesn't even take the time of a phone call to pop off. So, hostile messages are often impulsive and frequently regretted, apologized for, or taken back and clarified. Since the Net makes communication so easy, it makes corrections, criticism, and discussion inevitable. Nobody who writes or posts on the Web should expect anything less than sustained and continuous challenge and critique, something that is rarely permitted in mainstream journalism. Web writers and posters have to see these as integral to their work - not simply attacks - and as healthy antidotes to conventional media arrogance and elitism. Accompanying the hundreds and hundreds of personally assaultive messages I've gotten - as opposed to the thousands of simply critical ones - there is a strange and recurring phenomenon: If you respond quickly and respectfully, the overwhelming majority of hostile emailers either apologize, change their tone, or write back in a more reflective, serious, or friendly way. Most of these posters are stunned that anyone read their mail in the first place, or, even more amazingly, responded to it. [...]