L'Ombre de l'Olivier

The Shadow of the Olive Tree

being the maunderings of an Englishman on the Côte d'Azur

27 March 2007 Blog Home : March 2007 : Permalink

Anonymous Cowards

I have had quite a few hits on my post about the AutoAdmit boards and their anonymous commenters. Unfortunately it seems like those cowards are not the only ones, and even more unfortunately it seems like the anonymous cowards like picking on women. Some women, such as Michelle Malkin, Ann Althouse or for that matter Jill at Feministe, seem to be able to laugh it off most of the time but even they are clearly affected and not surprisingly so.

In that previous autoadmit post I wrote about the asymmetry of the internet where cowards are able to take advantage of the internet to hide them when they make comments about others. There is something else at work here, namely that it seems liek the worst threats are aimed at the ladies of the internet. I'm willing to bet that most of these anonymous scum are male, I also bet most of them are inadequate males with no serious self-esteem issues. Why? because the classic response to feeling inadequate and weak is to pick on someone weaker and, since women are generally physically weaker than men, these cowardly wimps pick on women that they feel threaten them. By far the best way to get these scumbags to stop will be to expose a few. It is amazing how these cowardly sorts will shut up if they think they can be identified. The anonymous nature of the internet is certainly one of its strengths in repressive countries, but it is becoming more and more of a liability in the free nations of the west. I'm not sure what to do about it but I suspect that the selective addition of more openness and publicity is likely to help a lot.

Other comments at feministe, majikthise, althouse, windsofchange, the Instapundit as well as techy bloggers like Robert Scoble and Roger van Oech.


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