A simple way to improve the internet
Internet incivility is a real world problem.
I feel like too many people wake up and think, "Who can I decide is bad, today?" and that's just no way to be. So, if you point out that someone did something horrible (and by "horrible", you usually mean "something I don't agree with") and I say "But maybe they just…", it's not always because I agree with what they've supposedly done, but rather to point out that there might be more to it. We're complicated. Situations are complicated. You don't know everything about it, so maybe back off a smidge and consider that.
Breaking the connection between “this person did a bad thing” and “this person is a bad person” is something we teach our children. And then promptly forget when we interact with other adults on the internet.
This tendency to form mobs and “other” people to make them an enemy is deeply ingrained into humanity. And we’ve built legal and social structures to minimise its effect in the physical world. The equivalents just don’t exist digitally, partially because we’re able to more easily hide from the human consequences of our actions because all we see of a person is pixels on a screen.
But there is a real, thinking, feeling human being behind those pixels, too.
We need a lot more digital empathy.
